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 commented that despite the colour and vigour of the music, there is little by way of characterisation, except in the cases of Kecal and, to a lesser extent, the loving pair and the unfortunate Vašek. The two sets of parents and the various circus folk are all conventional and "penny-plain" figures. In contrast, Kecal's character – that of a self-important, pig-headed, loquacious bungler – is instantly established by his rapid-patter music. Large suggests that the character may have been modelled on that of the boastful Baron in Cimarosa's opera "Il matrimonio segreto". Mařenka's temperament is shown in vocal flourishes which