Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/402

386 the directions for dancing the former: 'Set and hands across and back again, lead down the middle up again to the top, turn your partner with the right hand quite round, then with the left, hands 4 round at bottom right and left.' The same collection also contains a dance called 'Miss Simpson's Waltz,' the tune of which is written in common time. It was not until 1812 that the dance in its modern form made its appearance in England, when it was greeted with a storm of abuse as 'a fiend of German birth,' 'destitute of grace, delicacy, and propriety,' a 'disgusting practice,' and called forth a savage attack from Lord Byron. In spite of this reception it seems to have won a speedy victory, and is at the present day certainly more in favour than ever. In France the waltz made its appearance during the war with Germany (1792–1801) which ended with the Peace of Luneville, after which it was said that the Germans had ceded even their national dance to the French. It was first danced at the opera in Gardel's ballet 'La Dansomanie' (1800), for which Méhul wrote the music. Beyond the changes introduced in Vienna by Schubert, Strauss, etc., and adopted all over Europe, the form of the dance has not undergone any material alteration in France, though it was probably there that the misnamed 'Valse à deux temps' (i.e. a faster form of the danse, containing six steps to every two of the waltz 'à trois temps') was first introduced towards the middle of the century.

The music of the waltz originally consisted of two sections, each consisting of 8 bars in 3-4 or 3-8 time. Good examples of these primitive forms will be found in Beethoven's and Mozart's Deutsche Tänze. The next development of the music was the stringing together of several of these 16-bar waltzes, and the addition of trios, and a coda. This was first effected by Hummel in a waltz in 9 numbers, which he wrote in 1808 for the opening of the Apollo Saal in Vienna, but this isolated example cannot have had much influence upon the development of the waltz, since it is not until the time of Schubert that it possesses any intrinsic musical value. The dances of this composer form really the basis of modern waltz music. Though in the main they adhere to the old 16-bar form, yet the beginnings of development are apparent in them, not only in their immense musical superiority to any of their predecessors, but also in the numerous extensions and improvements of the original form which are to be found in them, and which have since become the commonplaces of every writer of dance music. For instance, in op. 9b, Waltz No. 15, instead of having an 8-bar phrase repeated in each section, has two sections of 16 bars each. The next number (16) has two introductory bars of bass solo before the 16-bar melody begins—a device which is nowadays too familiar to be noticed, though when Schubert wrote it was probably absolutely novel. A careful analysis of these beautiful compositions would probably reveal many such points of departure; indeed, in comparing them with the works of his contemporaries, such as Lanner and the elder Strauss, it is extraordinary to find how Schubert anticipated their effects. But if Schubert had so great an influence on the Viennese school of dance composers, it is to Weber that the waltz owes what, musically speaking, is its most important development. The composition of the 'Aufforderung zum Tanz' marks the adoption of the waltz-form into the sphere of absolute music, and prepared the way for the stream of piano-forte and vocal waltzes, not intended as accompaniments to dancing, the best examples of which are the waltzes of Chopin and Rubinstein, though this form of composition has been adopted by most writers of 'brilliant' music. Of late years a tendency has shown itself to revert to what may be called the Schubert type of waltz. To this class belong the waltzes of Brahms, Kiel, and other modern German composers. Brahms indeed may be said to have introduced a new class in his 'Liebeslieder' for pianoforte duet and vocal quartet; but the original type of these is the same as Schubert's dances.

In the early part of the present century the composition of waltzes for dancing was almost entirely in the hands of the Viennese composers. Johann Strauss the elder introduced the habit of giving names to waltzes, and it was at Vienna, under the Strauss family, Lanner, Labitzky, and Gungl, that the waltz became fixed in the form in which we now know it, i.e. an introduction generally in a slow tempo, foreshadowing the principal motive of the composition, and followed by five or six separate waltzes ending with a coda recapitulating the best numbers. Vienna has, moreover, always preserved the tradition of playing what a modern writer aptly describes as 'those irresistible waltzes that first catch the ear, and then curl round the heart, till on a sudden they invade and will have the legs.' France has produced a few good waltzes, but more for operatic or vocal purposes than for dancing, while England is very far below either country in compositions of this kind. The waltzes which achieve ephemeral popularity in England are generally beneath contempt as music, and as accompaniments to dancing are a long way behind the productions of Vienna.

With regard to the tempo of a waltz no strict rule can be given. In England the time at which waltzes are played and danced differs almost from year to year according to what is supposed to be 'the fashion.' The Viennese tradition of introducing rallentandos and accelerandos into waltzes, charming though it is to a musician, has never been caught by any English conductor of dance music, and probably would be found impracticable in England, where dancers may be seen exhibiting their lack of the sense of time and rhythm by waltzing to the music of a polka. Cellarius gives the proper tempo of a waltz 'à trois temps' as = 66, and 'à deux temps' as  = 88. [ W. B. S. ]