Moravian Duets (Moravské dvojzpěvy) is the title of a 23 part Moravian folk poetry settings for two voices and piano accompaniment, composed between the years 1875 and 1881, and published in three different volumes (Opp. 20, 32, and 38, also known as B. 50, 60/62, and 69 respectively). The fifteen duets that comprise Op. 32 are arguably the most famous part of the cycle. Dvorak began writing Moravian Duets at the request of his patron Jan Neff, who engaged him as a piano teacher for his family from 1873. Neff proposed that Dvorak might like to arrange certain Moravian folk songs from the famous collection by Frantisek Susil, 'Moravian Folk Songs with Melodies Included in the Texts', as duets with piano. Dvorak initially agreed to this, but then decided that, instead of arranging the existing melodies, he would use only the texts, for which he would write completely new musical settings.
