Tales from Vienna

A Brief History of the Waltz

Prior to the waltz, dance sequences were elaborate and required frequent lessons to master. Dance within the ballroom focused on groups, rather than couples. Furthermore, men and women remained at “safe” distances and physical contact was limited to the momentary touching of gloved hands at arms length.

However, in the beginning of the 19th century these limits were swept aside by the romantic and revolutionary closed position waltz that was the foundation of the next two centuries of ballroom dance.

Couples circulated in a counter-clockwise direction around the entire room. To this the waltz added the rapid rotation of the couple at 30 revolutions per minute. The result was an entirely new physical sensation of grace, flow, and motion that was such a compelling romantic escape from the static world that it’s attraction continues, unabated, today.

One must also cite the contribution of many gifted composers who carried the waltz beyond the ballroom to the ballet and concert hall, such that any music composed in ¾ time has come to be identified, by default, as a waltz.

There was initial resistance from dancing masters, who were alarmed and did not want to encourage a dance that could be rapidly learned from observation alone. This simplicity was a major factor that drove an explosive growth in popularity.

There was additional resistance to the waltz from those who felt alarmed for the safety of any woman in such close and continuous contact with a man, immediately following his every motion.

"We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last ... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion."

- The Times, London : 1816

However, against the attractions of the waltz there could be no real resistance. The ballroom became the undisputed center of 19th century social life.

The modern ballroom Viennese Waltz is the true descendant of this lineage, the result of minor changes over the course of the 19th century. In contrast, the modern "slow waltz" is a totally different dance, moving at half of the tempo and experiencing only one quarter of the turn rate.