WALTZING THROUGH EUROPE

A refreshing interven� on in dance studies, this book brings together elements of historiography, cultural memory, folklore, and dance across compara� vely narrow but markedly heterogeneous locali� es. Rooted in inves� ga� ons of o� en newly discovered primary sources, the essays aff ord many opportuni� es to compare sociocultural and poli� cal reac� ons to the arrival and prac� ce of popular rota� ng couple dances, such as the Waltz and the Polka. Leading contributors provide a transna� onal and aff ec� ve lens onto strikingly diverse topics, ranging from the evolu� on of roman� c couple dances in Croa� a, and Strauss’s visits to Hamburg and Altona in the 1830s, to dance as a tool of cultural preserva� on and expression in twen� eth-century Finland.


The Waltz at Some Central European Courts
princesses and princes from small German courts became consorts for monarchs at the larger courts, as discussed below.
There were, however, two main centres of political power in the German lands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the Austrian court 3 in Vienna and the Prussian court in Berlin. The reception of the round dances at these courts does not reflect what happened in other classes of society, nor necessarily other German courts, but it still conveys the attitudes and motivations that lay behind the scepticism or bans of the round dances.

The Prussian Court
During the 1770s and 1780s, when we can assume the Waltz was spreading and establishing itself in the German lands, Frederick II, also known as Frederick the Great (1740-1886), 4 was king in Prussia. He and his queen consort had separate courts. His court comprised mainly men, a circumstance that did not favour social dancing. In his famous letter on education, the king mentions dance only twice, as a female activity, superficial, and unimportant. 5 The attitude to dance at the Prussian court hardly changed during the short reign of the next royal couple, Frederick William II andQueen Frederica Louisa (1786-1797). During their reign, just before the woman who was to become the next queen of Prussia, Louise (1776-1810), 6 married into the royal family, she and her sister danced the Waltz at a ball of the Prussian court, defying the prohibition against it. The queen consort, their mother-in-law to be, was shocked and refused to allow her own daughters to dance it. 3 From 1868 known as the Austro-Hungarian court. 4 Friedrich der Große. The Crown Princess Louise soon acquired a striking popularity, partly due to her friendliness to ordinary people. The royal couple bought the Paretz estate out to the countryside, where every year they held an 'Erntefest' for the villagers, and participated in rural dancing. 8 This closeness to the countryside and to ordinary people was unusual for royals at that time, but it hardly changed the dancing practices at the court. Queen Louise died in 1810, after harsh times during the Napoleonic wars, which in many ways marked Prussia. Her husband Friedrich Wilhelm III was said to have little understanding for music and the arts, and Louise had to accommodate herself to the etiquette and protocol at the very stiff Prussian court. 9 Louise herself, however, reported in her diary that she danced a Waltz with the Russian emperor Alexander I, when she and her husband met with him in Memel, king, Frederick William III, was married to Queen Louise who danced the Waltz, and he attended the Vienna Congress. On the third line we find Wilhelm II who is celebrated in the middle, to the left his grandfather Wilhelm I and to the right his father, who ruled less than a year before dying. 8 Eilhard Erich Pauls, Das Ende der galanten Zeit: Gräfin Voss am preussischen Hofe (Lübeck: O. Quitzow, 1924), p. 157. 9 Gertrude Aretz, Königin Luise (Paderborn: Salzwasser-Verlag Gmbh, 2013).
Lithuania in 1802. 10 There is no mention of her husband dancing, but the Russian emperor was very popular with both of them for his kindness. Goethe's mother remembers in a letter to his son in 1806 that Queen Louise visited with her brother in 1790 and that they enjoyed the brief freedom from the stiff court etiquette, singing and dancing the Waltz. 11 In other words, the dancing of the Waltz was not a problem in itself, but to dance it at court balls was not permitted.
Felix Eberty (1812Eberty ( -1884 grew up in Berlin in a bourgeois Jewish family and remembered that during his youth, 'dancing was seen as a frivolous French amusement that was detested in the aftermath of the 4. The Waltz at Some Central European Courts liberation war [1813]'. 12 Eberty also refers to his aunt Hanna, 'who when she was young had been an attractive partner for the French officers s 13 who preferred to invite her for "Ekossaise" and "C". The Waltz and the Galop are newer, even if the Minuet already was about to die'. 14 It seems that Louise's little revolt as crown princess did not have any effect, and that the prohibition of the Waltz remained at the Prussian court until its end in the early twentieth century. We do not have sources to confirm that the Waltz was banned throughout this period, but it seems that the children connected to the court, the Waltz was not taught because it was considered inappropriate and therefore forbidden. 18 This was during the reign of Wilhelm I, so we can assume that he maintained the ban on the Waltz. At a later stage, she relates episodes when she and her partner forgot about the prohibition and danced the Waltz regardless. Somebody present commented that the Waltz was only forbidden because nobody knew how to dance it; the couple was praised for their dancing and allowed to dance once more. 19 The Prussian court even had a 'court Waltz', which 'was not more or less a Viennese Waltz, much more a kind of Galop'. 20 'The Viennese Waltz was not considered to be suitable for the court at official balls. It was forbidden to dance it in the presence of the Emperor and Empress'. When the Emperor entered the dance hall, the Viennese Waltz was interrupted. 21 Eduard von der Heydt (1882Heydt ( -1964, just ten years older than Victoria Louise, confirms and expands on her account: In answer to my question, why an experienced dancer of [the] Waltz was not allowed to turn to the left, I was told that their Majesties had the opinion that it would look untidy; everyone should turn in unison to the right. 22 The so-called Court Waltz at the official court balls was a Waltz in Galop tempo, and descended from the time of the old Wilhelm [I]. The impression of the 'prudishness' of the Empress Augusta 23 came from her court ladies […] from whom she was inseparable. 24 Theresa Buckland discusses the unpopularity of reversing in British high society in the late nineteenth century, even though the Waltz was fully accepted. 25 Lily Braun also confirms the ban on the Waltz at the Berliner court in her childhood in the 1870s, stating that the children 18 Lily Braun, Memoiren einer Sozialistin (Altenmünster: Jazzybee Verlag, 2012), p. 48. 19 Braun, Memoiren, p. 204. 20 Viktoria Luise, Im Glanz der Krone, p. 213. 21 Ibid., p. 215. 22 Theresa J. Buckland, Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England, 1870-1920 ( learned the Polka and the Francaise, but not the Waltz; the latter was prohibited as inappropriate even at children's balls at the court. 26 The new dances imported from the Americas, such as the Tango, were even more strictly banned. The Kaiser issued orders that no one should dance a Tango or Turkey Trot at the season's balls, nor 'go to the house of any person who, at any time, whether officers were present or not, had allowed any of these new dances to be danced'. 27 Wilhelm II's revival of old dances at his court had a nostalgic flair, in harmony with his wish for a splendour and grandeur that he could only find modelled in the past. Lily Braun reports how the Minuet was revived for a court ball, and how historical costumes were also made to grace the event. 28 It is paradoxical that this occurred at the same time as the budding folk dance movement. There are similarities as well as differences between the revivals, but it is difficult to ascertain whether there is any explicit connection between the two. 26 Braun,Memoiren,p. 48. 27 Giles MacDonogh, Prussia: The Perversion of an Idea (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994). 28 Braun, Memoiren, p. 210.

Waltzing Through Europe
The Austro-Hungarian Court From a twenty-first-century perspective, one would expect that the court in Vienna would have accepted and even embraced waltzing quite early. There are, however, sources that show the opposite, that the Waltz was forbidden at official court balls until the late nineteenth century.
It has been repeatedly claimed that there is a Waltz in the Opera Una Cosa Rara, with music by the composer Vicente Martín y Soler (1754-1806) (see Fig. 4.8) and libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749Ponte ( -1838. 29 The German dance historian Oskar Bie argues against earlier claims that this was the first Waltz to be performed, 30 but in our context the event might have some relevance. The opera had a tremendous success at its premiere at the Royal Burg Theatre in Vienna in 1786, during the reign of Joseph II (1780-1790. 31 The monarch (b. 1741-d. 1790) promoted music and dance, and seemed to have directly engaged with the staging of the opera. He is said to have insisted on the carrying through of the staging, when the musicians complained about the music. 32  There are, however, no signs in the libretto, nor in the scores, of the word Waltz or similar terms. There is a melody that is definitely Waltzlike in recent recordings of the music, and here the libretto says: 'scene nineteen: The above-mentioned [the actors already on stage]; enter Lille, and Ghita dressed without jackets with a little guitar etc. Two villagers bring out chairs adorned with flowers and offer them to the queen and the prince'. 33 Then follows a tribute to the queen, sung by the villagers and their soloists. This is the melody that sounds like a Waltz, but no dancing is mentioned. After a while, when the Waltz melody is finished, the village hero and heroine are dancing. At the end, there is a scene ('Finale II (Seghidiglia)') in which the hero and the heroine are still dancing, but this dance is said to be a Seghidiglia.
A second early source dates from 1801-1802, when the castrato singer Luigi Marchesi (1754-1814) visited the court in Vienna and came to be on very friendly terms with the Empress Maria Theresa (1772-1807), granddaughter of the famous Maria Theresa. Her mother, Maria Caroline, Queen of Naples was worried about his visit, saying that her daughter even danced Waltzes and Polkas 34 with Marchesi. 35 We cannot tell from the text if the main problem is the man or the dancing. Nonetheless, it shows that royals and members of the court might learn modern dances of their time, even if the rulers or the keepers of etiquette did not allow them in the official court context.
Firm evidence for the ban on the Waltz comes from the Vienna Congress. At least two sources suggest that Waltzes were played only when the Emperor Francis I (reigned 1804-1835) and the Prussian King had left the ball (see below). It is not likely that court practices changed during the reign of the next emperor (1835-1848), the epileptic and weak Ferdinand I. In an account of an unusually merry ninth anniversary party at the court in 1839, even his empress Maria Anna is said to have danced, 'although she during her eight previous years at the court never took so much as a step of the The last Austrian emperor to enjoy a lengthy reign, Francis Joseph I (1830-1916) is reported to have been an elegant and eager dancer as a child and a young man. 37 Even from his court there is, however, an anecdote about the ban on the Waltz: The Waltz, which Strauss and Lanner have made popular, was for a long time not considered appropriate even at the Viennese court. A beautiful story is told from the court ball, where the Waltz finally was danced for the first time. The young people present were entranced by the high-flown ring [of the music] and defied the directives. For the general adjutant   There may well be sources that say the Waltz was not really banned at the court in Vienna, or that the material presented above is weak.
The main point is that it challenges the impression that there was no reservation in the acceptance of the Waltz, and causes us to ask from where the resistance in court circles against the Waltz came. It is also striking to note that extensive searches have hardly resulted in any political cartoons or satirical pictures produced in the German lands in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In contrast, such pictures can be found in abundance in France and the United Kingdom in the same period.

The British Court
The reluctance to waltz at the main German courts is not mirrored at the court in London, where Queen Victoria (1819-1901) is reported to have danced Quadrilles and the Waltz at her fourteenth birthday. She was an accomplished and eager dancer into her old age. 41 The British royal family was tightly connected to Germany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. On the male side, the King of Hanover ascended to the British throne as George I in 1714. This established a personal union of the thrones that lasted until 1837 through the reigns of five monarchs. George III, Queen Victoria's grandfather, was the first of them to be born and raised in Britain. On the female side, Queen Victoria's grandmother Queen Charlotte, her mother Princess Victoria, and the queen consorts of her two uncles and predecessors on the throne were all princesses from smaller German courts. Even Victoria's husband was German. English cartoons mocking royals and their German background are plentiful (see Fig. 4.12).
In fact, righteous indignation and personal malice may have been partly responsible for Lord Byron's satire 'The Waltz' (1812), yet its uneven tone, a mixture of humour and bitter mockery, and its many Regent-baiting and anti-Hanoverian allusions, both pointed and hidden, convey the anti-Germanic sentiments of an outraged English patriot as much as they do the grievances of an infirm celebrity or a puritanical poet. 42 Implicit in the poem is a running attack upon the Germanic invasion of English life and letters under the first four Georges; the Germanophobia found in the poem, however, is largely an extension of the poet's violent antipathy to the Waltz-loving Prince Regent. 43 42  Although inspired by personal malice against the Regent, Byron's satire nevertheless accurately gauges the growing resentment in England against the German cast of English life. The frequent and malicious thrusts at the corpulent George IV reflect the attitude of many patriotic Englishmen who looked upon the corpulent George IV as the complete embodiment of German vulgarity and depravity, despite his attempts to reject his German ancestry. 45 The Waltz, 'this fiend of German birth, destitute of grace, delicacy, and propriety', 46 met with hostile opposition right from the time it was first danced at Almack's in about 1812. Loyal Englishmen shuddered when they thought about its perverting effects upon English manners and morals. 47 The strong attacks on the Waltz as German and vulgar did confirm that the British court already danced it, probably long before 1812, but this was the time when it began to gain acceptance. The elderly royal couple at this time, King George III and Queen Charlotte, who reigned from 1760 to 1820, were dancers, not least the queen, 48 but they belonged to the Minuet generation. 49 At a small party in 1778 we are told that the royal children made a small dance performance of a Minuet. 50 In 1811, their son became regent due to his father's illness, and he was the Waltzlover whom Byron hated. He remained in power as regent, and ruled as King George IV from 1820. At his death in 1830, his brother William IV took over and, finally, in 1837, their niece Queen Victoria came to the 44 William Childers, 'Byron's "Waltz": The Germans and their Georges', Keats-Shelley Journal, 18 (1969), 81-95 (p. 82 throne. There is, in other words, no sign of scepticism of the dance in the British royal family during this period, and with the family's close connections to smaller, probably more liberal courts in Germany, they could easily learn to Waltz. One of Queen Caroline's 51 ladies in waiting reports rather viciously about a ball soon after Caroline's arrival in Britain to marry the crown prince George (later George IV) in 1795. She states that it was 'very difficult to get together personages sufficient to make up a ball', and that another German princess was not sufficiently attractive: 52 But what was my horror when I beheld the poor Princess enter, dressed en Venus, or rather not dressed, further than the waist. I was, as she used to say herself, 'all over shock'. A more injudicious choice of costume could not be adopted; and when she began to Waltz, the terrae motus 53 was dreadful. Waltz she did, however, the whole night, with pertinacious obstinacy; and amongst others whom she honoured with her hand upon this occasion, was Sismondi. 54 These two large figures turning round together were quite miraculous. As I really entertained a friendship for the Princess, I was unfeignedly grieved to see her make herself so utterly ridiculous. 55 From these accounts we can assume that the crown prince, as well as the crown princess, knew the Waltz already well before their wedding in 1795. 56 Unlike the main German courts, the English royalty probably took up the Waltz well before the upper classes. The scepticism of their German background, the lack of respect for the couple's looks and lifestyles, and the criticism of their separation and bitter fights made it difficult for the English aristocracy to accept them, but nothing could stop the Waltz. on the English rage for Quadrilles and dancing parties is Lady Caroline Lamb, who was especially fond of the dance: 'we had them in the great drawing-room at Whitehall. All the bon ton assembled there continually. There was nothing so fashionable'. 59 A battle was fought with moral indignity against the new fashion. At the same time, an excited, frivolous enthusiasm arose. The two sides probably did not influence each other much; they were somehow incompatible as two sides of an argument. The critique of the first was partly political, aimed at German domination and a perceived lack of royal style; partly it was based in issues of morality and distinction. The second may have found its inspiration in reports from Paris that the Waltz was in fashion there, and from an exotic visit to London by the elegantly waltzing and good-looking Russian Tsar in 1814 (see the section below, 'The Russian Court'). 59 Byron, Waltz, I, 476.

The French Court
The French Revolution that started in 1789 obviously influenced the French court decisively in the decades that followed. It does not seem likely that the Waltz was even in question at the court during the old regime. German research has pointed to the Ländler as a basis for the Waltz, and a French dancing master published a version of the Allemande with figures very similar to those of the Ländler as early as 1769. 60 The music he offers is 2/4, and the French seem to look at the pre-revolutionary Allemande and the Waltz as two very different phenomena. The French author Antoine Calliot (1759-1839) describes in retrospect the dancing and the dancing masters during and after the revolution in a book published in 1827. He witnessed the last years of the old regime, the revolution, Napoleon's reign, and the restoration, and his text seems to betray a sympathy for the old regime.

The Waltz at Some Central European Courts
During the terrible days of the revolutionary government, since the male and female Jacobins 61 were the only ones who danced, the great masters of the Minuet and Gavotte and Allemande found themselves condemned to a fatal rest of their bourse and forced to give place to Masters of an inferior order. […] After 9 Thermidor, 62 joy and dancing were renewed with even more brilliance and among even more people, since they had been banned for such a long time. Then there was not a single young girl who did not hurry to take lessons in an art so uniquely suitable for making oneself distinguished in public and private gatherings.
The dancing masters ran in all directions, their violins under their arms or under their coats, to go and teach their charming art from house to house and they did not return home before night, panting, tired and all covered in sweat. It was at this same time, when so many families deplored the tragic death of their leaders and of what that was most precious to them, that we saw dances established on the ground of the old cemetery Saint Sulpice. The dance teachers were more in vogue than ever during the consulate and the empire. 63 The court, the palaces the hotels, the residential schools of young ladies, the houses of bankers, in short, all doors were opened to them and all the beauties rushed to them to receive their lessons. It was a complete revolution in the choreographic art. Dancing masters occupied themselves in inventing new figures, new steps and new 'contredanses', or in borrowing from abroad what their genius could not invent, in order to instil trust in their skills and strengthen their reputation.
In this way the 'Walse', heavily executed by the male and female dancers from Germania, was imported to France to the despair of mothers and husbands. This lascivious dance was for many years the most fashionable dance at the grand houses and among the bourgeois. Today it is no longer much in use except in the most common balls and in the taverns. 64 61 Led by Robespierre, the left-wing Jacobins, supported by the sans-culottes of the Even if Napoleon did take dance lessons in his youth, in Paris as well as in Valence, he never became a skilled dancer. 65 An episode reported by the French imperial family around 1810 gives an impression of their relaxed attitudes to the Waltz. At the time of this episode, Napoleon's two sisters, his adopted son, and the lover of his oldest sister are all in their late twenties, except the lover who is around twenty-five, a good-looking, cocky army officer well known for his audacity. This man insists that he wants to dance a Waltz with the hostess, who is his mistress, even if the next dance on the programme is a 'contredanse'. The viceroy, Napoleon's son, is about to dance with the other sister and calmly asks the conductor to keep to the programme, smoothing over the scandalous behaviour of the lover. The problem does not seem to be the Waltz, but that a nobody dares to interfere with the programme. 66 An anecdote from a writer whose mother worked for the Empress Josephine may not be true in detail, but is still realistic in its basic points. In 1810, Napoleon is waiting to receive his new wife from Austria. His niece says that all Germans want to dance the Waltz, and as a good husband he should be ready to dance it with his wife. Napoleon admits that he is not good at it, but tries to dance with his niece who knows the dance well. He manages to dance some rounds, quite awkwardly, but becomes so dizzy that he has to sit down, saying that his wife will have to be content that he dances the Monaco with her. This is a simple Contradance he knows. 67 Napoleon understands that he needs to dance sometimes, but he recognises his lack of skill, which is mentioned in several sources. 68 Jean-Michel Guilcher in his very advanced study of the French Contradance describes how the social importance of dance varied through the decades after the revolution, and how the prominence of highly ambitious and advanced dancing by the few gave way to a far more relaxed attitude that enabled everybody to join in. 69 In summary, there is little, if any, sign of any condemnation of the Waltz at the French court during Napoleon's reign. He was a parvenu ruling half of Europe, and, being a mediocre dancer, to see dancing skills as a distinction valued at court was not in his interest; likewise, it is hard to believe that issues of morality were of any concern for him. 4

. The Waltz at Some Central European Courts
The Russian Court If one seeks to find a dancing European ruler from the early nineteenth century, the Russian emperor Alexander I (1777-1825) would be a very good candidate. He reigned from 1802-1825 and contemporary sources from court circles in other countries are full of praise for his kindness, friendliness, good looks and dancing skills. 70 German newspapers reported on his impact, and how he charmed the English ladies and boosted the popularity of the Waltz during his visit to London in July 1814. 71 He is said to have introduced the Waltz in the famous Almack's with one of the patrons there, the Russian Countess van Lieven. 72 The old 'Oberhofmeisterin' at the Prussian court, Sophie von Voss, reported on her visit to the Russian court in St. Petersburg in January 1808. She danced the Polonaise several times, even with the emperor. 73 Whether the Tsar avoided the Waltz out of respect for the Prussian guests, or the Prussian protocol keeper avoided mentioning the Waltz, is hard to tell. The German philologist, Aage Ansgar Hansen-Löve, sums up the arrival of the Waltz: In Russia, the transition from typical aristocratic court dances like the Minuet to the repertoire of social dances, such as the Mazurka and the Waltz, took place at the beginning of the 19th century. It happened in the course of a new wave of appropriation and is to be understood as a new break from tradition. So, the introduction of the bourgeois Waltz took place during the Napoleonic wars at the court of the tsar. 74 70 Gertrude Aretz, Königin Luise (Paderborn: Salzwasser-Verlag Gmbh, 2013) Hansen-Löve's idea that the change from the Minuet to the Waltz was a change from aristocratic to bourgeois dance at the Russian court transfers a pattern that may have relevance in Western Europe to a context in which it hardly fits. The Minuet and the Waltz were foreign dances, just as the country dances were. Russian histories do not refer to any Russian bourgeoisie that would have the strength to influence the culture at the court in this period. It is hard to believe that the Waltz would make any big difference there, and the 'Mazurka' mentioned is hardly a round dance, but rather the aristocratic Polish Mazur with its complex group formations. The most aristocratic dance around 1800 may have been the Polish Polonaise, with its pompous walking around the dance floor in royal and aristocratic style, which did not require dancing skills. Alexander was much in favour of the Polonaise (see below), and it is more likely that the Russian court contributed to its spread in Germany than vice-versa. After Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated and forced to abdicate in the spring of 1814, the famous Congress of Vienna was summoned in September the same year. It was renowned for its sumptuous balls and its social life, and a congress diary was published in the Friedensblätter [Peace Magazine]. This tells us about the arrivals of the celebrities, such as ministers, diplomats and top military officers, but particularly royalty. The kings of Denmark and Württemberg arrived early and the Russian emperor and empress and the Prussian king some days later, as did the king and queen of Bavaria. The Austrian emperor and empress hosted the congress and many glittering events. France and England were represented only by diplomats, and the Swedish regent Bernadotte is also not mentioned. The Friedensblätter stresses a personal friendship between the king of Prussia, the emperor of Russia, and the emperor of Austria-Hungary, and describes one of the balls:  On the 9th October, there was a court ball -a 'Redoute paré' [masked ball] for 4000 participants. It started at 8pm, and at 10pm a procession of the made their entrée, led by the emperors and kings. The usual dances stopped at the royal entrance, and were succeeded by a March with trumpets. Then the music changed to a Polonaise, in which many of the highest-ranking members of the ball participated. The dance consisted of free quick walking 78 to the hand of a lady of the gentleman's choosing. Then the dancers progressed in a long line through the length of the ballroom and in many directions, and made many smaller or longer breaks. The Russian Emperor Alexander was the soul of this dancing; he and other high-ranking guests initiated the Polonaise throughout the evening. This continued until midnight, when many of the older, most high-ranking people had left, and staff served exclusive refreshments. Around three o'clock in the morning the dancing began again and then particularly the Waltz was favoured. 79 The French Count Garde-Chambonas wrote detailed memoirs from the congress. He gives a parallel description of a court ball, probably the same, and confirms the royal entrance and the Polonaise, which he characterises as inevitable. He also says that the orchestra started playing Waltzes after the 'departure of the "souverains"'. 80 This organising of the court balls, with the Polonaise danced while two German rulers were present, seems to have been typical at the congress. There are more comments about this: Notwithstanding the variety of musical forms advertised as the Russian emperor's favorites [sic.], Alexander's preferred terpsichorean exercise seems to have been the Polonaise. Despite the name, this dance had a dual function in the period almost as Russian national music and official Romanov court music. It was the Polonaise, rather than the Waltz, that most characterized Congress ballrooms. 81 Waltzing did go on, and one could say quite a bit about it in connection with the Congress, but its distinguishing dance was actually the Polonaise, considered at the time the epitome of aristocratic elegance. 82 The wife of the Danish ambassador complained that the dancing was dull at the ball given by the Danish king, the Polonaises were not amusing, and the other dances too short. The Danish king and the Russian emperor continued to dance through the night, so that their staff worried about their health. Most of the royals mentioned above were in their forties; the hostess, the empress of Austria-Hungary was the youngest at twenty-seven, followed by the Russian empress and emperor at thirty-five and thirty-seven. Garde-Chambonas also reports from several other balls: the Russian ball offered a performance of traditional Russian dances, and then Russian and Polish ballroom dances were performed, such as the Mazur. 83 At the ball given by the principal British diplomat's wife, her husband, Lord Castlereagh, a man in his mid-fifties, showed off his English dancing: but the sight of him 'dancing a "Gigue" with his big frame, lifting his long thin legs in time to the music, was more of a spectacle than an entertainment'. 84 There is no report of a ball hosted by the Prussian king, and the Austro-Hungarian emperor presented a Venetian ballet at one of the balls he hosted. 85 One wonders if the banning of the Waltz at the German courts was mainly an issue of distinction, to keep up the court standards of l'ancien régime in France. If so, they would try to retain old dances such as the Minuet, focus on ballet, and avoid the round dances of the bourgeoisie. Even the presentation of 'national dances' given by other countries was apparently absent.

4. The Waltz at Some Central European Courts
Summary Popular twentieth-century histories of dance, offering broad accounts of the development of particular dances, often suggest that England and France took a long while to accept the Waltz after it had already been established in Germany. The English pioneer of the history of ballroom dancing, Philip J. S. Richardson, writes in his well-referenced dance history: '[the Waltz] was first seen at Almack's about 1812, introduced in all probability by travelled aristocrats, who had seen it on the Continent where, as was to be the case in England, it met with very strenuous opposition'. 86 The Austrian-American dance critic and professor Walter Sorell writes: 'The list of the Waltz's condemnations is endless. England did not accept this dance before 1812, and for a long time it was forbidden in many parts of Europe. France, whose cultural reign was identified with the past, was most strongly opposed to the new dance; its dance teachers, of course, disapproved of it most vehemently'. 87 This understanding seems commonsensical, and all the condemnations seem to offer a strong support. Therefore, it is paradoxical that my discussions above about the Waltz at the main European courts suggests more or less the opposite. The German courts prohibited the dance, whereas other courts had few reservations about it. Of course, what happened at court did not represent what happened in the rest of the country, not necessarily even among the aristocracy. It is, however, questionable whether resistance to the Waltz can be measured by the number of indignant statements. More relevant would be the influence and power that the protesters had. Indignation is also salacious, and therefore well suited to spice up more sober source material, and might be somewhat overrepresented in dance histories. It could also be argued that dance enthusiasts hardly bothered to take moral indignation seriously and that they ignored condemnations and prohibitions that were not enforced. Therefore, the lack of replies does not mean that most people were in agreement. Indignation and acceptance or enthusiasm are not expressed in comparable ways, and acceptance is rarely explicitly expressed. Finally, most people cared little about the arrival of new dances; they would just adopt them when they were needed.
We have seen that the Waltz was probably prohibited at the two main German courts through the nineteenth century. That does not mean that it was prohibited in the smaller courts, in any of the states, or even at all court events in Berlin or Vienna. The British crown prince and princess, however, seem to have favoured and danced the Waltz fifteen years before it became acceptable among the British upper classes. They were criticised for this, because, not only did the dance have connections with Germany, but they themselves had strong ties to Germany, which many leading people in Britain disliked. France had undergone a dramatic revolution, and overturned a monarchy that had been a model for court life. That style and the most demanding of the old court dances were not relevant any more during Napoleon's reign. There were, of course, dance teachers and members of the aristocracy who regretted the loss of the old style and the old dances, and disliked the new. There is, however, no evidence that Napoleon, who did not master the Waltz, even hesitated to accept it. Finally, the Russian court was very open to European influences: Catherine II and several other German princesses had married into the court, and teachers from Germany and France taught their children. During the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the Russian emperor, true to his upbringing, was renowned as the most sociable, good-looking and skilled dancer of the Waltz among European monarchs.
The round dance paradigm had two parallel sets of impulses; those transmitted by the dancing masters, the 'Walzen'; and a set that existed among the lower classes, particularly in the Nordic countries, the 'Drehen'. The first type of dance is well represented in most European countries, and is relatively stable in terms of form. The second type did not seem to achieve recognition in polite society, even if German dance experts mention it during the decades before and after 1800. This type reverted to folk culture and influenced the Nordic countries heavily and Poland to some degree. The Schottische was, as far as I know, the only dance with Dreher elements that spread through most of Europe.
Much of the literature presented about round dances is about their origin, the precursors to the Waltz, before exploring how this dance grew to fame and spread. Several books also emphasise the resistance to and the outcry against the Waltz as immoral and harmful to health, particularly for young ladies. This introductory chapter has considered material about the European courts and their reception of the Waltz. The sources are not much more than a small selection of anecdotes, so the intention is obviously not to rewrite the history of the Waltz and the round dances. It is, however, an attempt to propose some new readings and some new perspectives, toning down earlier scholarly attention on the noisy cries about morals and health, and questioning their influence.
There are the stereotypes about relationships between neighbouring countries, which tend to colour attitudes to the neighbour's dances. There are rulers' conflicting ideals about how to be distinguished from their subjects, competing with a wish from some of them to be close to the people. Within this complex tangle of influences there is also the question of 'national' dances, that is, dances that originate from the country itself, adapted for use as the social dances of the upper classes. This kind of national dance is particularly typical in Poland. The desire to copy the most prestigious examples of foreign culture faced some competition from the national romantics, but not necessarily at court level.
Finally, one must consider the style and 'personality' of rulers and their courts, and their ideals. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, l'ancien régime was no longer the model for aristocratic social life, at least not in France. Napoleon increased the pomp and splendour at court throughout his reign, and the Bourbon Restoration tried to return to the past with little success. France lost its unquestioned leadership in matters of courtly fashion.
The sources from Napoleon's court do not reveal any direct reservations about the Waltz, even if Antoine Calliot is nostalgic about the masters of the old dances and their distinction, and slightly critical of the Waltz and the 'heavily dancing' Germans who brought it. The nostalgia for l'ancien régime did not seem to hinder the acceptance of the Waltz, which conquered France in less than a decade with the approval of her ruler and his court.
The English court, which had kings of German descent, also did not seem to have had any second thoughts about the German Waltz. The queen-to-be learned the dance from a young age and practised it with her German cousins when they visited. How typical and widespread was the dislike Lord Byron voiced for the 'German' king and the German Waltz, it is difficult to say. Byron's anger seemed as much rooted in politics and a personal grudge against a regent of German descent as in moral issues.
It is even possible that it was the Russian Tsar, rather than the German relatives of the royal family, who made the Waltz fashionable among the English upper classes. The Tsar's Waltz with Queen Louise of Prussia in 1802 suggests its very early acceptance in Russia. In some ways Alexander I and Queen Louise were the waltzers who had a particular aura during the first decades of the nineteenth century.
If we are to believe that the Waltz was banned for some one hundred years at the main courts of its place of origin, Germany, this is a striking situation. A deeper analysis is needed first to confirm that situation, and secondly to suggest the explanation for it. Finally, we must look into questions of distinction, of balance between foreign and national ideals and perhaps even of the personalities of rulers and the ambiance of courts.