Editing Waltz (section)

== History ==
[[File:Waltz.oggtheora.ogv|thumb|Waltz]]

There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance, including ''[[volte]]'', that would evolve into the waltz that date from 16th-century Europe, including the representations of the [[Printmaking|printmaker]] [[Sebald Beham|Hans Sebald Beham]]. The French philosopher [[Michel de Montaigne]] wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in [[Augsburg]], where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas (of approximately the same period) wrote, "Now they are dancing the godless ''Weller'' or ''Spinner''."<ref name="Nettl, Paul page 211">Nettl, Paul. "Birth of the Waltz." In ''Dance Index'' vol 5, no. 9. 1946 New York: Dance Index-Ballet Caravan, Inc. pages 208, 211</ref> "The vigorous peasant dancer, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, uses his surplus energy to press all his strength into the proper beat of the bar, thus intensifying his personal enjoyment in dancing."<ref name="Nettl, Paul page 211"/> Around 1750, the lower classes in the regions of [[Bavaria]], [[Tyrol]], and [[Styria]] began dancing a couples dance called ''Walzer''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Wechsberg|first=Joseph|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ci8IAQAAMAAJ&q=%22peasants+of%22|title=The Waltz Emperors: The Life and Times and Music of the Strauss Family|date=1973|publisher=Putnam|isbn=978-0-399-11167-9|pages=49|language=en}}</ref> The ''[[Ländler]]'', also known as the ''Schleifer'', a country dance in {{music|time|3|4}} time, was popular in [[Bohemia]], [[Austria]], and Bavaria, and spread from the countryside to the suburbs of the city. While the eighteenth-century upper classes continued to dance the [[minuets]] (such as those by [[Mozart]], [[Haydn]] and [[Handel]]), bored noblemen slipped away to the balls of their servants.<ref>Sir George Grove, John Alexander Fuller-Maitland, Adela Harriet Sophia (Bagot) Wodehouse. ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (A.D. 1450–1880)'' Published 1889. Macmillan</ref>

In the 1771 German novel ''Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim'' by [[Sophie von La Roche]], a high-minded character complains about the newly introduced waltz among aristocrats thus: "But when he put his arm around her, pressed her to his breast, cavorted with her in the shameless, indecent whirling-dance of the Germans and engaged in a familiarity that broke all the bounds of good breeding—then my silent misery turned into burning rage."<ref>''The History of Lady Sophia Sternheim'', trans. Christa Baguss Britt (State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 160.</ref>

Describing life in [[Vienna]] (dated at either 1776 or 1786<ref name=jacob>{{cite book|last1=Jacob|first1=H.E.|title=Johann Strauss: Father and Son a Century of Light Music|date=2005|isbn=1-4179-9311-1|pages=24–25}}</ref>), Don Curzio wrote, "The people were dancing mad&nbsp;... The ladies of Vienna are particularly celebrated for their grace and movements of waltzing of which they never tire." There is a waltz in the second act finale of the 1786 opera ''Una Cosa Rara'' by [[Martin y Soler]]. Soler's waltz was marked ''andante con moto'', or "at a walking pace with motion", but the flow of the dance was sped-up in Vienna leading to the ''Geschwindwalzer'', and the ''Galloppwalzer''.<ref>Wechsberg. ''The Waltz Emperors.'' 1973. C. Tinling & Company. page 49, 50)</ref><ref>''Grove's Dictionary'', page 385</ref>

In the 19th century, the word primarily indicated that the dance was a turning one; one would "waltz" in the [[polka]] to indicate rotating rather than going straight forward without turning.

Shocking many when it was first introduced,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gutman|first1=Robert W.|title=Mozart: A Cultural Biography|date=1999|publisher=Harcourt|pages=44–45}}</ref> the waltz became fashionable in [[Vienna]] around the 1780s, spreading to many other countries in the years to follow. According to contemporary singer Michael Kelly, it reached England in 1791.<ref>Scholes, Percy. ''The Oxford Companion to Music.'' 10th edition, 1991. page 1110</ref> During the [[Napoleonic Wars]], infantry soldiers of the [[King's German Legion]] introduced the dance to the people of Bexhill, Sussex, from 1804.<ref>Sussex ''Weekly Advertiser'', 21 January 1805</ref>

It became fashionable in [[United Kingdom|Britain]] during the [[British Regency|Regency period]], having been made respectable by the endorsement of [[Dorothea Lieven]], wife of the Russian ambassador.<ref name=hilton>{{cite book|last1=Hilton|first1=Boyd|title=A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> Diarist [[Thomas Raikes (dandy)|Thomas Raikes]] later recounted that "No event ever produced so great a sensation in English society as the introduction of the waltz in 1813."<ref name=raikes>{{cite book|last1=Raikes|first1=Thomas|title=A Portion of the Journal Kept by Thomas Raikes from 1831 to 1847: Comprising Reminiscences of Social and Political Life in London and Paris During that Period|date=1856|pages=240–243|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M4JBAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA240 |access-date=20 September 2015|author-link1=Thomas Raikes (dandy)}}</ref> In the same year, a sardonic tribute to the dance by Lord Byron was anonymously published (written the previous autumn).<ref name=readbookonline>{{cite web|title=Introduction to 'The Waltz'|url=https://www.readbookonline.org/read/3146/12629/|website=Readbookonline.org }}</ref><ref name=childers>{{cite journal|last1=Childers|first1=William|title=Byron's "Waltz": The Germans and Their Georges|journal=Keats-Shelley Journal|date=1969|volume=18|pages=81–95|jstor=30212687|publisher=Keats-Shelley Association of America, Inc.}}</ref> Influential dance master and author of instruction manuals, Thomas Wilson published ''A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing'' in 1816.<ref name=Fullerton>{{cite book|last=Fullerton|first=Susannah|title=A dance with Jane Austen: how a novelist and her characters went to the ball|date=2012|publisher=Frances Lincoln Ltd.|location=London, England|pages=110–111|isbn=978-0-7112-3245-7|edition=1st Frances Lincoln}}</ref> [[Almack's]], the most exclusive club in London, permitted the waltz, though the entry in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' shows that it was considered "riotous and indecent" as late as 1825. In ''[[The Tenant of Wildfell Hall]]'', by [[Anne Brontë]], in a scene set in 1827, the local vicar Reverend Milward tolerates quadrilles and country dances but intervenes decisively when a waltz is called for, declaring "No, no, I don't allow that! Come, it's time to be going home."<ref>Penguin edition 1964, page 42</ref>

The waltz, especially its closed position, became the example for the creation of many other ballroom dances. Subsequently, new types of waltz have developed, including many folk and several ballroom dances.