Hungarian Dance No. 5

In 1869 the first part "Hungarian Dances for the Pianoforte for Four Hands set by Johannes Brahms" was published. A second volume followed in 1880 and completed the series of twenty-one dances. Where the melodies of the dances come from is not always clear. On the one hand, many of these popular pieces with Hungarian colouring could be heard on every street corner, but on the other hand many of the themes also came from Johannes Brahms himself. With this success, the call of publishers for an orchestral version became loud. The dances No. 1, 3 and 10 were arranged by Brahms himself, but for the orchestration of the other pieces well-known composers such as Antonín Dvorák were soon found. However, the Prussian military music director Albert Parlow (no. 5, 6, 11, 12-16, 18) is also in the tradition of the arrangers. In his arrangement of the Hungarian Dance No. 5, one of the most beautiful of the 21 dances, Siegfried Rundel went the way that would basically be combined with the activities of a military music director: he adapted this dance for symphonic wind orchestra and thus added another jewel to the repertoire for wind instruments.