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 actually conducted by Pedro de Freitas-Branco, under the supervision of Ravel, who was present at rehearsal and the recording session. Ravel himself made a piano roll recording of the piece in 1922. (His performance is approximately five minutes and forty seconds in length.) In addition to numerous recorded performances within the classical repertoire, the "Pavane" maintains a significant presence in popular music. In particular, the song "The Lamp Is Low" was adapted from it. More recently, the Pavane appears in dozens of popular albums under both French and English forms of its title. It was recorded by Pedro Aznar on