Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the Waltz

Eric J. Mckee

Description

Music and social dance of the 18th and 19th centuries

Much music was written for the two most important dances of the 18th and 19th centuries, the minuet and the waltz. In Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the Waltz, Eric McKee argues that to better understand the musical structures and expressive meanings of this dance music, one must be aware of the social contexts and bodily rhythms of the social dances upon which it is based. McKee approaches dance music as a component of a multimedia art form that involves the interaction of physical motion, music, architecture, and dress. Moreover, the activity of attending a ball involves a dynamic network of modalities—sight, sound, bodily awareness, touch, and smell, which can be experienced from the perspectives of a dancer, a spectator, or a musician. McKee considers dance music within a larger system of signifiers and points-of-view that opens new avenues of interpretation.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Influences of the Early Eighteenth-Century Ballroom Minuet on the Minuets from J. S. Bach's French Suites, BWV 812–817
2. Mozart in the Ballroom: Minuet-Trio Contrast and the Aristocracy in Self-Portrait
3. The Musical Visions of Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss Sr.
4. Dance and the Music of Chopin: Historical Background
5. The Musical Visions of Chopin
6. Chopin's Approach to Waltz Form
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Musique
• Histoire de la musique
• Technique musicale
• Technique musicale
• Techniques musicales
• MUSIC
• Multiple signal classification
• Criticism
• Choreography
• General officer
• History of classical music traditions
• Theory
• Musicology
• Cinema
• Dance
• General
• History
• Media
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 23 novembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253028044
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

DECORUM OF THE MINUET, DELIRIUM OF THE WALTZ
MUSICAL MEANING & INTERPRETATION
Robert S. Hatten, editor

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Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the Walts
A STUDY OF DANCE*MUSIC RELATIONS IN ¾ TIME
Eric M c Kee
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington & Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
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© 2012 by Eric McKee All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo copying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKee, Eric, [date]-
Decorum of the minuet, delirium of the waltz : a study of dance-music relations in ¾ time / Eric McKee.
p. cm. – (Musical meaning and interpretation)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35692-5 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Waltzes – 18th century – History and criticism. 2. Minuet – 18th century. 3. Waltzes – 19th century – History and criticism. 4. Minuet – 19th century. I. Title.
ML 3465.M45 2012
784.18′83509 – dc23
2011021186
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
CONTENTS
 
 
 
 
 
· Acknowledgments
· Introduction
1. Influences of the Early Eighteenth-Century Ballroom Minuet on the Minuets from J. S. Bach’s French Suites, BWV 812–817
2. Mozart in the Ballroom: Minuet-Trio Contrast and the Aristocracy in Self-Portrait
3. The Musical Visions of Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss Sr.
4. Dance and the Music of Chopin: Historical Background
5. The Musical Visions of Chopin
6. Chopin’s Approach to Waltz Form
· Notes
· Bibliography
· Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 
 
 
 
 
This book would not have been possible without the kind and generous support of many people. To begin, I am grateful for the constant encouragement of Robert Hatten and for his close reading of my manuscript. His insightful suggestions and comments have improved the book on many levels. The expert team at Indiana University Press has guided me in the process of preparing my manuscript. I am particularly grateful to my copy editor, Mary M. Hill, whose careful reading of my prose saved me from some potentially embarrassing errors. Any mistakes that remain are, of course, entirely my own. The amazing Phil Torbert provided the musical examples, whose preparation was made possible by a grant from the Institute of Arts and Humanities at the Pennsylvania State University. Krzysztof Komarnicki provided many of the Polish translations.
I am grateful for my musicology and theory colleagues at the Pennsylvania State University School of Music for providing a friendly, supportive, and stimulating working environment. A faculty fellowship through Penn State’s Institute of Arts and Humanities provided me a semester’s release to complete much of chapter 3 . A fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies allowed a year’s release to gather and develop material for chapter 4 . I wish to acknowledge the journal Music Analysis for permission to rework two articles previously published in 2004 and 2008. Some of the material in chapters 4 and 5 originally appeared in an essay published in The Age of Chopin , edited by Halina Goldberg and published by Indiana University Press.
Above all, I am thankful for my family. The loving support of my parents has given me the confidence to pursue a career path that has led to this book, and my children’s boundless energy and sense of wonderment have kept me grounded in a world where anything is possible. The greatest debt of gratitude I owe to my wife, Emily – she is my rock and inspiration.
DECORUM OF THE MINUET, DELIRIUM OF THE WALTZ
INTRODUCTION
 
 
 
 
M. JOURDAIN : Yet I never learnt music.
MUSIC MASTER : You should learn, Sir, the same as you do dancing. The two arts are very closely allied.
…
DANCING MASTER : Music and dancing. Music and dancing. That is all that is necessary.
MUSIC MASTER : There is nothing so useful to a State as music.
DANCING MASTER : There is nothing so indispensable to mankind as dancing.
MUSIC MASTER : Without music the State would cease to function.
DANCING MASTER : Man can do nothing at all without dancing.
MOLIÈRE, THE WOULD-BE GENTLEMAN
This book investigates dance-music relations in two out of the three most influential social dances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the minuet and the waltz (the contredanse being the other influential dance). I take the position that if one wishes better to understand the musical structures and expressive meanings contained in these dances, it is helpful to be aware of the bodily rhythms of the dances upon which they are based and the social contexts in which they were performed. In doing so, I approach dance music as a component within a multimedia art form, a form that involves the mutual interaction of physical motion, mental attitude, music, architecture, and dress. Moreover, the activity of participating in a ball involves a dynamic network of modalities (sight, sound, bodily awareness, touch, and smell), and these modalities can be experienced from a variety of perspectives (as a dancer, as a spectator, or as a musician). In reconstructing the social multimedia framework of the minuet and waltz, I hope to provide a critical vantage point that yields fresh insight and meaning to the following questions: What did the dancers require of the music, and how did composers of the minuet and waltz respond to the practical needs of the dancers? In what ways did composers go beyond the practical requirements, incorporating into the music the aesthetics and cultural associations of the dance? What are the nature and function of minuet-trio contrast in the Viennese dance minuets of the second half of the eighteenth century? What was social dancing like in Warsaw during the 1820s, when Chopin was coming of age, and to what extent did Chopin participate in social dancing? In what ways did the visual experience of watching waltzers waltz influence the nature of the waltz’s thematic material and its large-scale patterning? And to what extent was Chopin influenced by the ballroom waltzes of Lanner and Strauss Sr.?
The ubiquity and far-reaching influence of social dancing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries cannot be overestimated. The activity of dancing was a vital part of social life and was without question the most common form of social entertainment, especially during the winter months and carnival season. It pervaded all levels of society and served a broad range of social functions. 1 For the lower classes, dancing provided a diversion from the toils of the day; the upper classes used it as a way of defining themselves individually within their class and collectively apart from the lower classes; and for all levels, the activity of dancing was a vehicle for courtship, ceremonies, and celebrations. It seems that whenever and wherever people got together, there was bound to be dancing. Indeed, as the spoken lines from Molière’s ballet suggest, “man could do nothing at all without dancing.” Certainly this was proven true at the court of Louis XIV, for whom the ballet was first premiered in 1670. As a means of political and social control, the king required his large and lumbering retinue of lesser aristocrats to participate in an endless stream of royal balls. And a little over a century later, Molière’s lines were famously proven true again by the foreign diplomats and dignitaries assembled at the Congress of Vienna of 1814–15, an aff