Hungarian Dances
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) · sheet music
- Time 2/4
- Levels 7–9
- Passages 13
Your turn · both hands
Preparing your passage…
Johannes Brahms, German romantic (1833–1897). The reading release has 13 passages from this piece at levels 7–9; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 7–10 for both hands together.
The hardest stretch is bars 7–14 at level 9.
Your practice path
Learn it the way teachers do: each hand on its own, then together, then the hard bars. Each step is a real graded passage of Hungarian Dances.
- Hands together · bars 7–10 level 7
- The hardest bars · bars 7–14 level 9
How to play Hungarian Dances
- Feel two strong beats per bar and let the tempo flex the way the music asks; sudden slowings and rushes are part of the style, so mark every tempo change before you start.
- Accent the off-beats and syncopations that Brahms writes in, since they give the music its dance-band snap; a plain, even rhythm makes these dances sound flat.
- Solo arrangements often give the left hand octave leaps and full chords at speed; practice the jumps alone, aiming for the bottom note first and letting the chord follow.
- Learn each section at a slow tempo with the accents exaggerated, then put the sections together and practice the transitions between tempos on their own.
Structure
Each dance is short, usually two to four minutes, and built from contrasting sections, often with a middle part in a new key or tempo before the opening returns. Many imitate the csardas, swinging between slow, brooding passages and fast, whirling ones. The famous No. 5 is in F-sharp minor in the original duet, with a middle section in the major that lurches between slow and fast tempos before the opening tune comes back.
About Hungarian Dances
Brahms published the twenty-one Hungarian Dances in four books, two in 1869 and two in 1880, and they were among the biggest commercial successes of his career. He issued them without an opus number because he regarded them as arrangements of existing tunes, and he later made solo piano versions of the first ten himself.
Why the first passage is level 7
That passage is level 7 rather than 6 because it runs fast figuration.
Brahms wrote his Hungarian Dances for piano duet, based on the popular Hungarian-style tunes he heard as a young musician. Solo arrangements pack the duet into two hands, so expect full chords, quick rhythms, and sudden changes of tempo. The fifth dance is the best known.
Questions about Hungarian Dances
- How hard is Hungarian Dances to play?
- Its passages grade from level 7 to level 9 on Real Sight Reader's ten-level reading scale, so the full piece is intermediate to advanced reading. The hardest stretch is bars 7–14 at level 9.
- Is there an easy part of Hungarian Dances for beginners?
- Its easiest passage is level 7, so it suits a reader past the beginner stage. Start with bars 7–10 for both hands together, the level-7 passage in the reader at the top of this page; it is level 7 because it runs fast figuration.
- What key and time signature is Hungarian Dances in?
- The engraving on this page is in 2/4 time.
- Who composed Hungarian Dances?
- Johannes Brahms, German romantic (1833–1897). Brahms published the twenty-one Hungarian Dances in four books, two in 1869 and two in 1880, and they were among the biggest commercial successes of his career.
- Can I practice Hungarian Dances online for free?
- Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 13 graded passages from Hungarian Dances in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.
Every passage, easiest first
The reading release grades 13 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:
- Level 7
- bars 7–10 both hands
- Level 8
- bars 1–8 both hands · bars 1–12 both hands · bars 1–4 both hands · bars 5–8 both hands · bars 9–12 both hands · bars 17–24 both hands · bars 17–20 both hands · bars 19–26 both hands · bars 21–24 both hands · bars 25–28 both hands
- Level 9
- bars 7–14 both hands · bars 31–34 both hands
More pieces to sight-read
Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (pdmx), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261001-mutopia-ly reading release.