Pruden's greatest contribution to the repertoire of the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra was Dances of Brittany. Based largely on transcriptions of Breton folk songs, this piece was immensely and immediately successful, critics describing it as "pleasingly nostalgic and capricious" and "a work of some subtlety and quite striking effects". Pruden wanted the work to be "immediately enjoyable and acceptable" and intended it should supplant Children's Suite at long last.

In a radio broadcast on 28 October 1956 the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra played what became the second and third movements of the final work – the National Youth orchestra under Pruden's baton gave Wellington the first full public performance at the Town Hall on 25 September 1957. Thereafter it enjoyed a continuous run with the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra (variously conducted by Pruden, Dobbs Franks and Ashley Heenan). The work was also taken up by the National Orchestra (later the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) under John Hopkins and the John Ritchie String Orchestra in Christchurch. According to John Ritchie:Dances of Brittany mixes the guile of Peter Warlock with the flair of Benjamin Britten. 

The work was performed overseas under Hopkins in Brussels and Manchester, and at the Wigmore Hall in London by the Riddick String Orchestra under Ashley Lawrence. It was frequently broadcast and also recorded commercially.