Malcolm Arnold lived in Cornwall for many years, and it was not long after moving there, in 1966, that he composed the four Cornish Dances. Dedicated to his second wife Isobel, the Dances were first performed on August 13, 1966, at one of the famous Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, with Arnold himself leading the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Usually performed in their orchestral setting, the Dances have also been arranged for brass band, and for orchestra supplemented by extra brass.

In a program note Arnold referred to the "male voice choirs, brass bands, Methodism, May Days, and Moody and Sankey hymns" of Cornwall, and one can hear hints of these in the Cornish Dances. As with the other national dances for orchestra—English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh—he composed, Arnold does not quote actual folk songs, but writes his own melodies in the appropriate regional style. A certain nobility characterizes the main theme of the energetic first Cornish Dance, Vivace, despite what has been called the "cheeky insistence" of the tune's repeated notes. Arnold evoked, in the note mentioned above, the abandoned copper and tin mines that can be found all over Cornwall, and their "strange and sad beauty," as he characterized it, is conveyed in the atmospheric second movement Andantino. Something of a rustic marching band quality underlies the hymn-like third dance, which ends with a sort of "Amen" passage. In the fourth and final dance, another hymn theme is heard, this time in alternation with a jig-like melody, heard first in flute and harp. Starting off in the distance, the music moves closer in a gradual crescendo, leading to one final forceful statement of the hymn theme.

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