German dance
The German dance shortly also German , is an example of the exchange and the relationship between courtly, social and folk dance .
Origins
Its origins go back to the Allemande (French "German"), also known as German dance . This was a dance from the 16th to 18th centuries, consisting of a quiet pre- dance in straight beat and a faster night dance in three-beat.
development
When the allemande was accompanied by other dances in the 18th century, such as B. the minuet , was ousted from the fine ballrooms, it went into the "musical underground", i. H. it lived on in folk music and changed: the night dance in three beats became the “German” in southern Germany and Austria around the middle of the 18th century. It is a popular revolving dance for single couples in 3/4 or 3/8 time. The simple musical structure generally consists of two repeated eight bars.
Dance bans
Because of the tight posture, the dance was considered immoral. In Bavaria in 1760 the "rolling and protective dances" were banned, from 1772 the ban also applied in the state of Salzburg, as it could lead to "indecent touches".
However, the development could not be stopped: Against the resistance of the church and the nobility, the "German" prevailed as a "lower" dance in the course of the bourgeois emancipation movement and the French Revolution from around 1790, first in Vienna. The enlightened Emperor Joseph II commissioned “Germans” from the best musicians of the time for balls in the Redoutensaal. Therefore there are dances of this genre by Haydn (35 Germans for orchestra), Mozart (50 Germans for orchestra), Beethoven (24 Germans for orchestra) and Schubert (over 100 Germans for piano). “Germans” are also used again and again in folk music, today mostly as table music, in some places also as folk dance.
Dance figures
In a description from the end of the 18th century, the “German” is danced as follows: “The dancers embrace each other with one arm, while the two free hands are placed inside each other and stretched out. The couple turns. The individual couples form a large circle and thus surround the hall. In the inside of the circle, where they are not disturbed by the rapid turning of the rolling ends (!), Individual pairs try their hand at the figures. These consist of graceful entanglements of the arms and graceful positions of the body. "
These figures look like contemporary figures like Lander figures (e.g. Fensterl, Joch, Herzerl) (see also “Open Waltz”). It is therefore often assumed that Walzer and Länders are different versions of "German" that have become independent over time. (The Austrian composer Joseph Lanner called his dances first German dances or Länders , later waltzes ). However, at least the country is much older. The country folk who were deported to Transylvania between 1734 and 1737 took their already fully developed, multi-figure country dances with them, which are very similar to the country folk danced in today's Upper Austria and already have the waltz round dance as the final figure. Accordingly, the “German” could be a further development of the Ländler, a kind of intermediate stage on the way to the waltz. But it could also be that “Deutscher” is simply the older name for the country man.
In the case of Lüsener Deutschen , a country trader from South Tyrol , the 5th figure is named “German dancing”. In fact, this figure is a Schuhplattler figure .
Development to the waltz
At the beginning of the 19th century, the “German” went over to the waltz at an accelerated pace. The landlord and only partially the German dance survived in folk music. Since the last quarter of the 18th century, the term "Länders" appears for the first time for the slow way of dancing with figures.
Franz Schubert initially called his waltzes "Germans". He also uses both terms alternately for the same piece of music. After the Congress of Vienna (1815), the German “national dance” caught on internationally and became the leading social dance of the 19th century. The waltzes of that time were kept rather simple, the previous individual dances were only put together into longer sequences. Carl Maria von Weber's invitation to dance in 1819 then became the model of the Viennese waltz , in which the form of introduction, chain of five waltzes and coda with thematic recursions is characteristic.
A letter from Tragöß (Styria) from 1860 says: “The old cozy Styrian music was replaced by the invention of the flugelhorn and machine trumpets, as well as the Styrian dances and old Germans , as the waltzes were called earlier, the polka, Franzaise, mazurka, etc. ., who were naturalized by traveling Bohemian musicians, had to give way. "
The German in folk dance
- In Mieger (Carinthia) the German is danced as a minuet-like step dance, see [1] .
- In Lüsen (South Tyrol) a Schuhplattler figure is named as Deutschtanzen, see [2] .
swell
- The music. Dudenverlag, 1979.
- Salzburg music history. Publisher Anton Pustet, Regensburg 2005.
- This is only how you dance in Vienna. Pichler Verlag, 1997.
- Richard Wolfram: The folk dances in Austria and related dances in Europe. Otto Müller Verlag, 1951.
- Carl Joseph von Feldtenstein: Extension of the art of dancing after the chorography. Braunschweig 1772, ( digitized version ).
- Rudolf Flotzinger : German dance. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3043-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Libbert (Ed.): Wenzel Matiegka, 12 easy pieces op. 3 for guitar. Adapted from the original text [from the chemical printing works in Vienna from around 1814]. Edition Preißler, 1979 (= studio series guitar. Volume 3), p. 16: Allemande (German) .
- ↑ Jürgen Libbert (Ed.): Wenzel Matiegka, 12 easy pieces op. 3 for guitar. Adapted from the original text [from the chemical printing works in Vienna from around 1814]. Edition Preißler, 1979 (= studio series guitar. Volume 3), p. 16: Allemande (German) .