béla bartók composed the "dance suite" in 1923 in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the union of the cities buda and pest, to form the hungarian capital budapest. then, after its great success, the director of universal edition, emil hertzka, commissioned from him an arrangement for piano, which was published in 1925. however, he never publicly performed this arrangement, and it was premiered in march 1945, a few months before his death, by his friend györgy sándor.