Piano Pieces, Op. 52, B110

After the huge success of the first series of Slavonic Dances for four-hand piano, publishers began urging Dvořák to write more piano pieces. In May 1880 London-based publishers Patey and Willis approached the composer to request a “series of piano pieces”. Dvořák accepted the commission and wrote a cycle of six piano pieces entitled Six Morceaux pour Pianoforte. The firm sent the manuscript back, however, stating that they were “not popular enough”. In the end the work was published by Leipzig-based firm Hofmeister, but Dvořák left out the final two parts (which were printed after his death) as he decided he now wanted a balanced series of four movements. The cycle is one of the most extensive and formally most elaborate of Dvořák’s piano compositions from the late 1870s and early 1880s.