Originally composed for piano duet, the two sets of orchestrated Slavonic Dances were first performed at the Crystal Palace on February 15, 1879.
Performed at a Presto tempo, this first dance is in a Czech rhythm known as a "furianty," a style that Dvorak also used for several of his scherzos, most notably the one in his Symphony No. 6. This basic lilting rhythm of the melody is built of one measure of three beats (two eighths, two quarters), and another measure of 1+2 quarters with a staccato skip on the first beat and a marked accent on the second. (Dvorak had a marked preference for trochaic and dactylic meters). The percussion and bass instruments emphasize the melodic rhythm and also create a inner accent: 2+1, 1+2, 1+1+1, 1+2.
The bright, innocently joyful theme is played by the full orchestra at the opening in an ebullient C major. Immediately a variation in A major echoes the theme with a pared down instrumentation for winds (minus clarinets), horns giving the backbeat accent on the second beat, and the low strings and bassoons on the first and third beats. A simple triangle on the first beat adds a lovely timbre.
The next variation of the theme seems at first to be in D major except that the lower strings and tympani keep emphasizing a C natural, which creates the feeling of a village bagpipe modal melody, until the music modulates into G major and then G minor. (This is a kind of inverted so-called "Moravian modulation," favored by the composer, which normally proceeds from a minor key to a major key one step lower). The melody is further metamorphosed in this (Lydian) mode when the full orchestra returns, ostensibly in F, but the composer is tricking our ears, as the actual key turns out to be C major.
The next variation features a kind of hurdy-gurdy imitation with the melody in parallel thirds in the oboes, the clarinets and bassoons forming an oom-pah-pah accompaniment, and the flute tootling along in rolling eighths. This is all doubled by pizzicato and lightly bowed strings. The melody gradually fragments and grows quieter. But the composer has delightfully tricked the listener again, and the full orchestra suddenly blasts out the cadence. There is a little piano dynamic laugh with pizzicato strings and staccato winds, followed by a single held note in the oboes, leading to a transition.
The second theme enters, a gradually descending staccato line in A major with one offbeat accent. This melodic form which returns to the beginning note is a definite Czech folk style. A brief bridge in B flat minor (another inverted Moravian modulation) is presented in a fluty, whistling orchestration. Flowing string create a grand waltz. All the beginning sections are then recapitulated, lightly tripping strings over drones appear before the final coda which features an enthusiastic, splashy, emphatically repeated IV-I cadence. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide
