Waltz

The waltz, whose name comes from the German word *Walzer* meaning "to roll or revolve," is a dance in triple (3/4) time. It is performed mainly in a closed position and originated in German-speaking parts of Europe during the 1700s. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was often grouped with the ländler and allemande under the general label "German Dance."

References to a sliding or gliding dance that would eventually become the waltz appear as early as the 16th century in Europe, including in prints by Hans Sebald Beham. In 1580, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne described a dance he saw in Augsburg where dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Around the same time, Kunz Haas wrote that people were dancing "the godless Weller or Spinner." One observer noted that a vigorous peasant dancer, instinctively understanding the weight of a fall, would use extra energy to press his strength into the proper beat, heightening his personal enjoyment. By around 1750, lower classes in Bavaria, Tyrol, and Styria were dancing a couples dance called *Walzer*. The ländler, also known as the *Schleifer*, was a country dance in 3/4 time popular in Bohemia, Austria, and Bavaria, and it spread from rural areas to city suburbs. While upper classes in the 18th century continued to dance minuets by composers like Mozart, Haydn, and Handel, bored noblemen would slip away to their servants' balls.

In Sophie von La Roche's 1771 German novel *Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim*, a high-minded character complains about the newly introduced waltz among aristocrats, saying that when a man put his arm around a woman, pressed her to his chest, and cavorted with her in the "shameless, indecent whirling-dance of the Germans," it broke all bounds of good breeding and turned his silent misery into burning rage. Describing life in Vienna around 1776 or 1786, Don Curzio wrote that people were "dancing mad" and that the ladies of Vienna were celebrated for their grace and tireless waltzing. A waltz appears in the second act finale of the 1786 opera *Una Cosa Rara* by Martin y Soler, marked *andante con moto* ("at a walking pace with motion"), but the dance's flow sped up in Vienna, leading to the *Geschwindwalzer* and the *Galloppwalzer*. In the 19th century, the word "waltz" primarily indicated a turning dance; one could "waltz" in the polka to mean rotating rather than moving straight forward.

Though shocking many when first introduced, the waltz became fashionable in Vienna around the 1780s and spread to other countries in following years. According to singer Michael Kelly, it reached England in 1791. During the Napoleonic Wars, infantry soldiers of the King's German Legion introduced the dance to people in Bexhill, Sussex, starting in 1804. It became fashionable in Britain during the Regency period after being made respectable by the endorsement of Dorothea Lieven, wife of the Russian ambassador. Diarist Thomas Raikes later noted that no event had ever caused such a sensation in English society as the introduction of the waltz in 1813. That same year, a sardonic tribute to the dance by Lord Byron was published anonymously. Dance master Thomas Wilson published *A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing* in 1816. Almack's, London's most exclusive club, permitted the waltz, though the Oxford English Dictionary shows it was still considered "riotous and indecent" as late as 1825. In Anne Brontë's *The Tenant of Wildfell Hall*, set in 1827, the local vicar tolerates quadrilles and country dances but intervenes when a waltz is called for, declaring it time to go home.

The waltz, especially its closed position, became the model for many other ballroom dances. New types of waltz later developed, including folk and ballroom variants. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, numerous waltz forms existed, including versions in 3/4, 3/8 or 6/8 (sauteuse), and 5/4 time (5/4 waltz, half and half). In the 1910s, Vernon and Irene Castle introduced the Hesitation Waltz, which featured pauses on the standing foot during the full waltz bar, with the moving foot suspended or slowly dragged. Similar figures like the Hesitation Change, Drag Hesitation, and Cross Hesitation appear in the International Standard Waltz Syllabus. The Country Western Waltz is mostly progressive, moving counterclockwise around the floor, with a relaxed posture and frame that borders on a slouch. Exaggerated hand and arm gestures are not part of this style. Couples may dance in the promenade position depending on local preferences. Within Country Western waltz, there is the Spanish Waltz and the more modern Pursuit Waltz (from the late 1930s to early 1950s). In some locations, it was once considered ill treatment for a man to make the woman walk backward. In California, Mission priests banned the waltz until 1834 because of its closed dance position; afterward, a Spanish Waltz was danced, combining closed-position circling with a formation dance of two couples facing each other. The "Valse a Trois Temps" was the earliest waltz step, and the Rye Waltz was preferred as a couple dance.