This version of the waltz had two quite different, and slightly more complicated, steps than those in the French waltz. ‘The Construction of the Movements is truly elegant and, when they are well performed, afford subject of much pleasing Amusement and Delight.’ The German waltz was Wilson’s undoubted favourite. It is obvious, though, that these steps need practice if they are to be well performed. Wilson’s explanations are not entirely clear and I am radically condensing them. The jetté or quick sauteuse waltz had just one step, a jetté-hop combination, performed first on one foot and then on the other. The sauteuse waltz replaces the pirouette with a jetté-step combination and makes the first step of the pas de bourée a jetté. I can’t help feeling there was a link between them. The rhythmic pattern is reminiscent of the simplest timing of the basic pas de menuet. In the slow waltz, these were a half-turn pirouette and a pas de bourée, over two bars of 3 / 4 music. Each of these little waltzes had its own steps. As the titles suggest, the dance got progressively faster. The French waltz began with the ‘Slow Waltz’, changed to the ‘Sauteuse Waltz’ and ended with the ‘Jetté, or Quick Sauteuse Waltz’. Wilson distinguished between the French waltz and the German waltz. It was a social dance and not meant as a display piece. What about the waltz? How difficult was it? The waltz was always danced with a number of couples on the floor at any one time. This, too, needs much practice to master. Tomlinson tries to suggest such musical challenges in his notation of the minuet. The couple could begin their dance at any point in the music (taking care to start on an odd-numbered bar), so their dance figures would inevitably cross the musical structure and phrasing at several points. The accurate performance of the figures, as well as their placing and orientation within the dancing space, needs a great deal of practice. The dancers had to begin and end facing them and the figures had to be oriented in relation to them. The Art of Dancing (1735), Plate UĪt balls, the minuet was addressed to the two highest ranking members of the audience, referred to as ‘the presence’. Some idea of the steps and figures of the minuet is given by Kellom Tomlinson’s notation of the dance. It can repeated at will and is often, but not always, reprised just before the final figure. The Z-figure is the principal figure of the minuet. There are five figures: the opening figure the Z-figure taking right hands taking left hands taking both hands, which is the closing figure of the dance. All the steps of the minuet require a great deal of practice if they are to be performed with ease and elegance. The contretemps du menuet, the other basic step, had another different timing over six beats. There are two main timings, and both could be used within a ballroom minuet. Minuet music is in 3 / 4 but the basic pas de menuet takes two bars of music, so four steps have to be fitted into six musical beats. What was difficult about the minuet? Apart from the pressure of performance, both the steps and the figures were exacting. Controlled and elegant deportment was essential, not least to enable the partners to manage and display their elaborate attire, including the gentleman’s hat. It also allowed for some improvisation, mainly through the use of ‘grace steps’ in place of the conventional vocabulary. It had specific steps and figures (floor patterns) that had to be performed in a set order. This did not mean that it was slow and stately, 18 th-century minuets were lively and quite fast dances. It was, in effect, an exhibition ballroom dance. It was danced one couple at a time before the scrutiny of all the other guests. The minuet was the duet that opened 18 th-century formal balls. My friend did not specify any particular version, so I will look at Thomas Wilson’s A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing (1816). I am nowhere near as practised in the early waltz. I have danced many minuets over the years and I am well acquainted with the challenges of the ballroom minuet, as described by Pierre Rameau in Le Maître a danser (1725) and Kellom Tomlinson in The Art of Dancing (1735). An early dance friend recently suggested to me that the 19 th-century waltz is more difficult than the 18 th-century minuet and invited me to discuss the idea.
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