| Viennese waltz may have evolved from Die Weller und Die Ländler, peasant turning dances in three-quarter time — three beats to the measure; quarter note is one beat — danced in Bavaria and the western Alpine regions of Austria-Hungary in the seventeenth century and prior. Its name comes from the Old German verb walzen, to turn or to roll. Another source cites the Italian verb volver, also to turn or to revolve, and a third source cites a traditional French peasant dance called the Volta. By the middle of the seventeenth century, waltzes were played at the Hapsburg court, however, the dance itself was part of traditional court ballroom contredanses with arms intertwining at shoulder level.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, waltz had migrated to France where the dance partners’ close hold was introduced, again adopted from the peasants’ whirling holds, bodies pressed together as closely as possible. Opinions of this “modern” form of the dance varied. “The waltz was a smash hit from the very start”1 to “The waltz was also criticized on moral grounds by those opposed to its closer hold and rapid turning movements.”2 Eventually, the continental European aristocracy, occupied by its stately but overly stuffy quadrilles and minuets, saw what fun it was missing and adopted the waltz as one of its own dances. Austrian music scholar Max Graf wrote, “If there exists a form of music that is a direct expression of sensuality, it is the Viennese waltz. It was the dance of the new Romantic Period after the Napoleonic Wars, and the contemporaries of the first waltzes were highly shocked at the eroticism of this dance in which a lady clung to her partner, closed her eyes as in a happy dream, and glided off as if the world had disappeared. The new waltz melodies overflowed with longing, desire and tenderness.” Conservative moralistic England was the hold out. After the Prince Regent (later George IV)3 introduced the waltz at a London ball in 1816, The Times sniffed, “We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last ... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.” Yet 21 years later, George IV’s niece Victoria,4 perhaps the modern epitome of conservative morality, assumed the throne and built a reputation as a lover of the dance. The waltz had finally gained respectability in England. Viennese waltz eventually migrated to the United States, possibly first performed in Boston during the 1830s. There it slowed in pace to become the American or Modern waltz as opposed to the quicker Viennese waltz. Viennese waltz is danced to about 180 beats per minute5 — puff, puff — utilizing Reverse Turn into Underarm Turn into Change Step into Natural Turn into Change Step into Promenade, back into Reverse Turn, then different steps and on and on. At a ball last year, we asked an acquaintance — a newcomer to Viennese waltz — what she had learned that evening. Along with a smile, “I learned to count to three,” was her reply. We researched this very brief history of Viennese Waltz on the internet and through personal experience. If you have any additions or changes you would like reflected on this page, please send us a note at Salt Lake Vienna Waltz Association. We will credit you. 1 www.bobjanuary.com/waltz.htm (April 2005). “The Waltz” 2 www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/waltz.htm. “Waltz” 3 en.wikipedia.org (January 2007), “George IV of the United Kingdom” 4 en.wikipedia.org (January 2007), “Victoria of the United Kingdom” |
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