Antonín Dvorák wrote a good deal of music for solo piano, very little of which has ever really made a name for itself in a repertoire whose every corner is filled with more user-friendly, and often more pianistic, works. (Dvorák could hold his own at the keyboard, but he was certainly no virtuoso). Some of the dances and humoresques are occasionally taken off the shelf for a run-through, however, and a few of the sets of short pieces are loved by more pianists than just the Czech-specialists. Perhaps the best of these sets is the Poetic Tone Pictures for piano, Op. 85, 13 colorfully titled pieces supplied with abundant colorful music.

Dvorák apparently came up with the 13 picturesque titles after he had finished composing the pieces in June 1889. They are, in English: 1. Nighttime Path, 2. Toying, 3. At the Old Castle, 4. Song of Spring, 5. Peasant Ballad, 6. Lament, 7. Furiant-Dance, 8. Goblin-Dance, 9. Serenade, 10. Bacchanal, 11. Tittle-tattle, 12. At the Hero's Grave, 13. On the Holy Mountain.

The pieces are in reality not all that short; still, Dvorák hoped that pianists would perform them all together. The many-faceted No. 1 is perhaps most like a small tone-poem. Nos. 7 and 8 make for a nice minor major dance pair; these two are the most immediately appealing of the group, but Dvorák strikes deepest in the serious-subjected Nos. 3, 12, and 13.

© All Music Guide