Home > Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music > Waltz

(Ger. Walzer, from walzen, turn around; Fr. valse; It. valzer). The quintessential ballroom dance in time, which was first performed in Austria toward the end of the 18th century. Choreographically, it consists of a pair of dancers moving around an imaginary axis, resulting in a movement forward.

In the 18th century the waltz was regarded as a vulgar dance fit only for peasant entertainment. In 1760 waltzing was specifically forbidden by government order in Bavaria. The waltz received its social acceptance in the wake of the French Revolution, when it became fashionable even in upper social circles on the continent. England withstood its impact well into the 19th century.

The first representation of a waltzlike dance on the stage occurred during a performance of the opera Una cosa rara by Martin y Soler in Vienna in 1786. The waltz attained its social popularity during the Congress of Vienna in 1815. At that time it was known under the name of Wienerwalzer. In France the valse assumed different forms, in , , or time, as an ANDANTE (sauteuse), ALLEGRETTO, ALLEGRO (jeté), or PRESTO. In the 20th century, an American waltz misnamed Valse Boston (in reality, a HESITATION WALTZ) spread all over Europe about 1920.

As a musical form the waltz generally consists of two repeated periods of eight bars each. The earliest printing of a waltz in this form was the publication of 12 concert waltzes by the pianist Daniel Steibelt in 1800. These were followed by a collection of waltzes by Johann Nepomuk Hummel published in 1808. These concert waltzes were extended by the insertion of several TRIOS, multiple REPRISES, and a CODA, lasting nearly half an hour in all.

During the 19th century, the concert waltz became a favorite among composers for piano, beginning with CARL MARIA VON WEBER, and finding its greatest artistic efflorescence in the waltzes of FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN canonized the waltz in his famous Diabelli Variations (op. 120), based on a waltz tune.

The waltz grew into an industry in Vienna. Joseph Lanner and JOHANN STRAUSS (I) composed hundreds of waltz tunes to be played in Viennese restaurants and entertainment places. JOHANN STRAUSS (II) raised the waltz to its summit as an artistic creation, which, at the time, served the needs of popular entertainment. He was justly dubbed "The Waltz King" (Walzerkönig). Strauss wrote many other popular works, including Tales of the Vienna Woods, Voices of Spring, Vienna Blood, and Wine, Women, and Song (see WEIN, WEIB, UND GESANG). All these waltzes were really chains of waltz movements.

Gradually the waltz, like the MINUET, assumed a legitimate concert form. HECTOR BERLIOZ has a waltz movement in his Symphonie fantastique, PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY includes a waltz in his Fifth Symphony, and GUSTAV MAHLER has one in his Ninth.