The Viennese Ballroom in the Age of Beethoven

Reveals how the culture and repertoire of the early Viennese ballroom permeated and intersected with other areas of musical life.

Erica Buurman (Author)

9781108495851, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 December 2021

300 pages
25 x 17.5 x 1.6 cm, 0.53 kg

'Recommended.' M. N.-H. Cheng, Choice

The repertoire of the early Viennese ballroom was highly influential in the broader histories of both social dance and music in nineteenth-century Europe. Yet music scholarship has traditionally paid little attention to ballroom dance music before the era of the Strauss dynasty, with the exception of a handful of dances by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. This book positions Viennese social dances in their specific performing contexts and investigates the wider repertoire of the Viennese ballroom in the decades around 1800, most of which stems from dozens of non-canonical composers. Close examination of this material yields new insights into the social contexts associated with familiar dance types, and reveals that the ballroom repertoire of this period connected with virtually every aspect of Viennese musical life, from opera and concert music to the emerging category of entertainment music that was later exemplified by the waltzes of Lanner and Strauss.

Introduction
1. The public ball in Viennese musical life, 1770–1830
2. Early waltz dances of the Viennese ballroom: transmission and transformation in eighteenth-century music and dance
3. The minuet: performing aristocracy in the Viennese ballroom
4. The contredanse: participation and spectatorship in the public ballroom
5. Dance arrangements from the Viennese stage
6. Battle waltzes: programmatic music in the ballroom
7. The Congress dances': the Viennese public ball and court-sponsored festivities at the Congress of Vienna
Epilogue
Appendix: Selected original musical sources consulted
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Romantic music [c 1830 to c 1900 AVGC5], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Music [AV], Dance [ASD]