Copyright

Jörgen Torp

Published On

2020-09-10

Page Range

pp. 283-316

Language

  • English

Print Length

33 pages

10. Waltzing Through Europe

Johann Strauss (the Elder) in Hamburg and Altona in 1836

  • Jörgen Torp (author)
Chapter of: Waltzing Through Europe: Attitudes towards Couple Dances in the Long Nineteenth Century (pp. 283–316)

This chapter explores how the music of Johann Strauss the Elder, the King of the Waltz, was distributed during the 1830s. By examining the reception of Strauss touring with his orchestra, it establishes how his dance music became popular on a supra-regional level. It argues that while the study of the music alone does not explain the spread of the dance tradition, the dissemination of well-known dance music certainly influenced the distribution of the Waltz as a dance.

Contributors

Jörgen Torp

(author)

Jörgen Torp received his PhD in Systematic Musicology from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2007. He is author of Alte atlantische Tangos: Rhythmische Figurationen im Wandel der Zeiten und Kulturen [Old Atlantic Tangos: Rhythmic Figures through Different Ages and Cultures] (2007), a book focusing on aspects of various forms of tangos on both sides of the southern Atlantic around and before 1900. Jörgen's research interests include studies in music and dance. For more than thirty years he has been a member of the ICTM (International Council for Traditional Music) and, for more than twenty-five years, a member of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology.