Furiant Furiant A furiant is a rapid and fiery Bohemian dance in alternating 2/4 and 3/4 time, with frequently shifting accents; or, in "art music", in 3/4 time "with strong accents forming pairs of beats". The stylised form of the dance was often used by Czech composers such as Antonín Dvořák in the eighth dance from his "Slavonic Dances" and in his 6th Symphony, and by Bedřich Smetana in "The Bartered Bride" and in his second volume for piano of Czech Dances ("České tance 2"), published in 1879 (Op. 21). The use of the furiant by central European composers closely parallels
The Bartered Bride created music considered by Czechs to be quintessentially Czech in spirit. The overture, often played as a concert piece independently from the opera, was, unusually, composed before almost any of the other music had been written. After a performance at the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, the opera achieved international recognition. It was performed in Chicago in 1893, London in 1895 and reached New York in 1909, subsequently becoming the first, and for many years the only, Czech opera in the general repertory. Many of these early international performances were in German, under the title "Die verkaufte Braut",