The Public Dance Hall

Nineteenth-century ballrooms turned bands into a service industry, producing dance music to the clock.

Related

RomanticWaltzPolkaQuadrille

Nineteenth-century public ballrooms turned bands into a service industry, producing dance music hour by hour through the night.

Time and place

Vienna, Paris and London from the 1830s to the 1860s. Viennese ballrooms opened nightly during carnival, and the Strauss bands moved between several venues in one evening. The Blue Danube was first performed in Vienna in 1867 and then played both in ballrooms and in concerts. At the end of the century ragtime and American dance halls brought another rhythm into the same space.

What happened

A ballroom sold tickets, kept a cloakroom and dance cards, employed a house band and ordered the dances. The band was smaller than an opera orchestra, its leader often also first violin, and repertory moved through hand-copied and printed parts. Waltz, polka, quadrille and galop each had a fixed metre and step, and the band repeated the same set of pieces through the evening. Composers wrote dances in sets, with an introduction, a chain of melodies and a coda, so the length could be controlled and those who did not dance had something to hear. The music was also printed as piano scores for those who danced at home. Players often hurried between halls, changing bandstands several times a night.

What changed

Music became a service billed by the hour, its form following the steps, with repeated strains, a trio and a coda as standard parts. The triple-time waltz and duple-time polka spread across Europe, and the ballroom became a public place where classes and sexes met, which also drew moral criticism. Dance bands became a steady profession, and the ballroom was among the first entertainment venues to hold customers with music, using light and tempo to pace the night.

Listen for the turn

Begin with the Blue Danube, an introduction followed by a chain of waltz melodies of about eight bars each, closing with a return to the opening material. Then Bruckner's Quadrille, square phrases and clear beats, functional and never meant for seated listening. Finally Joplin's The Entertainer, syncopation displacing the accent while the body still follows. Before the turn dance music was part of court etiquette; afterwards it was a ticketed night business.

Related

The turn belongs to Romantic, with dance types at Waltz, Polka and Quadrille.

Sources

• Grove Music Online 的 Ballroom 与 Waltz 条目，用于核对公共舞厅与舞曲生产
• William Weber, Music and the Middle Class（Holmes and Meier），用于核对舞会与音乐会听众的分化

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.