Polonaise through the White House receiving line. Sousa wrote it in 1886 at the request of President Chester A. Arthur who died before it was performed. Tchaikovsky's opera "Eugene Onegin", an adaption of Alexander Pushkin's novel in poetry verse, includes a famous polonaise. The polonaise is a Polish dance and is one of the five historic national dances of Poland. The others are the Mazurka (Mazur), Kujawiak, Krakowiak and Oberek, last three being old folk dances. Polonaise originated as a peasant dance known under various names – "chodzony" ("pacer"), "chmielowy" ("hops"), "pieszy" ("walker") or "wielki" ("great"), recorded as early as the
Pavane pour une infante défunte Pavane pour une infante défunte Pavane pour une infante défunte ("Pavane for a Dead Infanta") is piece for solo piano by the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1899 when he was studying composition at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. Ravel also published an orchestrated version of the "Pavane" in 1910; it is scored for two flutes, oboe, two clarinets (in B-flat), two bassoons, two horns, harp, and strings. A typical performance of the piece lasts between six and seven minutes. It is widely considered a masterpiece. Ravel described the piece as "an evocation of a pavane that a