What's a Waltz?

Rhode Island Music Comment

The Waltz

	The Waltz There is quite a lot of information available about waltzes. For more authoritative views, check your local music library... One of the points I want to make is, that there were lots of 3-time dances before the waltz, some fast, some slow. So all tunes in 3-time or 3/4 time are not waltzes and do not have to be accented heavily on the first beat.
	Name The origin of the word "waltz" is vague. Some sources claim that it derives from a German word "walzen" meaning to glide or turn. Other sources say that it is derived from the Italian word "Volver" meaning, to turn. The first music to be labelled "Waltzen" apparently was recorded in Germany about 1754 (Sadie 1980). The dance may have developed as an outgrowth of a heavy-footed German folkdance called the Landler, but at least one source says that the Landler came later as a form of waltz after 1800. So the origin of the name and of the dance is somewhat obscure.
	1600s- 1700s Before the Waltz Before the waltz there were other turning dances done by couples. The Volta was a dance known before 1600, described as being "like a Galliard but done to slow music." Galliards were done to moderate tempo 3/2 music, or later, 3/4 but without the heavy accent on the first beat. The Volta was done to 6/4 music, or possibly later, to 5/4 music. In the Volta, the lady stood at the left of the man, holding her skirt in her left hand to prevent it from flying up as the man lifted her by putting his left thigh under her right thigh. Don Herbison Evans says that there is a demo of this dance in the movie "The Sword and the Rose." A very early version of a 3/2 tune for these dances is "The Hole in the Wall" published in Playford in 1695 (and in Barnes' English Country Dance Tunes) - a version of "The Hole in the Wall" is shown in the film "Emma."
	1810 -- Early Waltzes and the Waltz Craze. The word "waltz" apparently was used to describe a turning movement in a dance, so according to some sources, in the 1700s in France there were contredanses where one figure of the dance was an "Allemande waltz" that involved turning while partners held each other by the shoulders. But apparently, one commentator in Paris in 1804 called this "quite new." Soon, though, what we would recognize as a waltz appeared: dancers in couples, twirling to a 3/4 melody full of passion and longing. Over the next few years in Vienna, the waltz craze was starting up. There were giant dance halls opening that could accomodate thousands of dancing couples at a time. Everyone who remembers World History 101 remembers the Congress of Vienna and its dancing delegates at the end of the Napoleanic Wars. By 1830 Strauss and Lanner were becoming the great Waltz composers. In some circles, this vogue spread rapidly but it seems that in 1845 when composer Hector Berlioz visited Vienna he could still be surprised by the dominance of the waltzes there. The first waltzes in Britain arrived after 1810 and especially after 1816 when the Prince Regent first allowed waltzing at his high society balls. This was aristocrats - it was not a dance of the people! In the USA the first recorded waltzing did not occur until 1834 when a Boston socialite hosted a shocking demonstration by an Italian dancing master in Boston. What was the big scandal about the waltz, anyway? Although there were some European court dances that were touchy-feelly, so to speak, the waltz was the first scandalous dance that everyone could learn, and immediately take part in. Unlike other court dances, you didnt need a dancing master to instruct you. So, the scandalous touching was indiscriminate. Couples were described as clinging to each other, with the lady wrapping her concealing cloak around them both as they whirled off into the dimmer recesses of the candlelit halls where they would be, we imagine, often unaccountably delayed... Not so badly regarded by the family if the guy was a Duke at a elite ball, but probably not so well received if he was a social climbing butcher's assistant that the lady had met moments before in a crowded public dance hall. The scandal was in who you were clinging to, as much as the clinging!
	Late 1800s - 1900s Evolving into the Modern Waltz By the late 1800s there were waltzes everywhere, but things weren't stagnant. Many different forms of waltz had evolved, done to 3/2, 2/4, 3/4, even 5/4 times. The 'Boston" was a slow time form of the waltz done at about 90 beats per minute, in contrast to the very fast Viennese waltzes composed by the Strauss gang, done at 180 beats per minute. The Boston also introduced the habit of couple putting their hands on each others hips rather than shoulders or back, and the parallel footed pacing, rather than more open ballet angled footing. (see Don Herbison Evans). It is interesting that even today, in New England waltzes are routinely done at a slower tempo (say, 85) than in, say, the Southwest, where fairly rapid waltz tempos (say, 120) were common in community dances in the late 1900s. In organized dance competition today, there are two recognized waltz classes: "Viennese" and "Modern." At the same time, there were other dances that used 3/4 time but with accenting on the 2nd or 3rd beat, notably the Mazurka. Quite a few classical composers, Chopin for one, composed Mazurkas. They were popular in the US and in Ireland, where there are a number of well-known mazurkas such as "Sonny's Mazurka" in the repertoire. Mazurkas are sometimes described as "lively but slower than waltzes." However, based on the comments here, that is not a very useful description. Some dancers who have done Mazurkas where I was playing have preferred tempos about 100 - 120. Here's a rather complicated annotation of Sonny's Mazurka from the great piper Willie Clancy. He called this tune Garrett Barry's Mazurka after a great piper of the latter part of the 1800s who also has a well-known jig and reel named after him.
	What's Not a Waltz? A basic point here is, although we recognize a waltz today as a turning dance done step-close-step to 3/4 time, all tunes written in 3/4 time are not waltzes and do not have to be oom-pah-pah. The Irish master harpist and composer Turlough O'Carolan* composed many tunes which can be written in 3/4 time notation. But he never heard a waltz, as we understand the term. He was born in 1670 and died in 1738, long before the word waltz had even been used to describe the dance or music. So, in composing his masterpieces we can fairly imagine that he had something else in mind than whirling masses of couples step-close-stepping. His airs, which are often heard as waltzes, (including Planxty Fanny Powers, Hewlett or Catherine Nowlan) are really more authentically timed and accented as what we might even call marches (see time notation on this transcription!) One modern example of a "not a waltz" is "Ashokan Farewell" composed in 1982, and routinely played as a waltz, but according to the composer, Jay Ungar, ""Ashokan Farewell is written in the style of a Scottish lament or Irish Air. I sometimes introduce it as, 'a Scottish lament written by a Jewish guy from the Bronx.' " So it is not a waltz at all. Another beautiful example of a 3-beat "not-a-waltz" which has rapidly entered the folkmusic repertory is the Edorian/Eminor tune "Les poules huppees" or "Crested Hen", written a few years ago by the contemporary French (not Breton) folk musician Gilles Chabenat. It is a "bourree a trois temps" which should have only a very slight accent on the 1 beat. It has a non-waltz three time effect called a "hemiola." This happens when two bars of a three beat tune are accented as if they were actually three bars of a two beat tune. So instead of "1-2-3, 1-2-3" you get "1-2, 1-2, 1-2." -------------------------------- Bottom Line? You should play these tunes the way you feel. But what you should NOT do is allow anyone to suggest to you that they MUST be played as "waltzes" or that you are wrong not to accent them as if they were the product of 1800s Vienna!