La Nner and Strauss

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/259554295
Joseph Lanner, Johann Strauss Sr and ‘The Future of Rhythm’
Article in Music Analysis · October 2013

DOI: 10.1111/musa.12016
CITATIONS READS
3 511
1 author:
Eric Mckee
Pennsylvania State University
14 PUBLICATIONS 61 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
All content following this page was uploaded by Eric Mckee on 05 March 2020.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

DOI: 10.1111/musa.12016
ERIC MCKEE
JOSEPH LANNER, JOHANN STRAUSS SR AND ‘THE FUTURE OF RHYTHM’
Wildly successful by any measure, Joseph Lanner (1801–1843) and Johann

Strauss Sr (1804–1849) were among the first generation of musicians who
devoted themselves solely to the composition, performance and publication of
music aimed at a wide audience and designed for showmanship, pleasure and
dancing – music referred to today as ‘popular music’. During the late 1820s and
early 1830s, Lanner and Strauss Sr not only brought their own individual brands
of performing and composition styles to the ballroom dance floor, but in the
process also defined the characteristic features of the ‘Viennese waltz’, probably
the most important and influential dance type in the history of Western music.
While some art composers, such as Chopin, held Lanner and Strauss in con-
tempt,1 others, such as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner and especially Berlioz,
heaped praise upon them both for the high level of their orchestral performances
and for their melodic and rhythmic ingenuity.2 Not even the conservative critic
Eduard Hanslick was immune to the charms of their music.3 Yet, despite the
historical significance and far-reaching influence of Lanner’s and Strauss’s
music, there have been only three published analytical studies in English devoted
to this vast repertoire.4
My article begins with a brief discussion of Berlioz’s 1837 article ‘Strauss:
His Orchestra, His Waltzes – the Future of Rhythm’ ([1837b] 2001),5 as well as
some of his observations, recorded in his Memoirs, on Strauss’s waltz music.
Berlioz considered Strauss a true artist whose experimentations in rhythm had a
considerable but at the time unrecognised influence on European musical taste
(Berlioz 1969, p. 377). Taking my cue from Berlioz, in the remainder of my
essay I explore some of Lanner’s and Strauss’s contributions within the realm of
rhythm, especially with regard to metrical dissonance. With one exception, the
repertoire I examine is made up of waltzes composed between 1826 and 1836 –
the first ten years of Lanner’s and Strauss’s published output. Although I make
no claims of influence concerning specific pieces by Strauss that Berlioz may
have heard, this is the period that predates Berlioz’s article.
My approach to phrase rhythm, which I define as the dynamic and construc-
tive interaction between phrase structure and metrical structure (especially
hypermetre), is based largely on the work of William Rothstein (1989); for the
concept and analytical application of metrical dissonance, I rely on the work of
Harald Krebs (1999). My goals are to provide a study of characteristic rhythmic
techniques used by Lanner and Strauss during the early and middle stages of
Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) 1

© 2013 The Author.
Music Analysis © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
2 ERIC MCKEE
their careers, and to shed light on a fundamental shift in waltz composition that
occurs around 1830: from music marked by artless simplicity that served a
utilitarian function to the emergence of a sophisticated language of popular
music, music capable of holding the attention of a discerning listener. My article
concludes with some general considerations regarding the expressive, formal and
choreographic implications of metrical dissonance as it relates to Viennese
ballroom dancing.
Berlioz and ‘The Future of Rhythm’

Berlioz confesses in his Memoirs (1969, p. 377) that when he visited Vienna’s
famed Redoutensaal during the winter of 1845–6, he would spend ‘entire nights
watching these incomparable waltzers whirling around in great clouds’. Not only
was he enchanted by the spectacle, he was also transfixed by the rhythmic
organisation of Strauss’s music – ‘the uneven accentuations of the melody’, ‘the
combined and contrasted rhythms’ and ‘the cross-rhythms’ between the melody
and the accompaniment (1969, p. 377).
Eight years earlier, while living in Paris, Berlioz penned a short article entitled
‘Strauss: His Orchestra, His Waltzes – the Future of Rhythm’.6 On 4 October
1837 Strauss set out for Paris with 26 of his finest musicians in tow on what
would be the first leg of a gruelling fourteen-month tour across Western Europe.7
He remained in Paris from late October to the end of February, during which
time he performed at well over 50 concerts and balls. The premiere concert,
which Berlioz attended along with such musical luminaries as Auber, Halévy,
Meyerbeer, Cherubini and Philippe Musard, was held at the Gymnase musicale
on 1 November 1837. Berlioz’s article was published soon after, on 10 Novem-
ber 1837, in the widely read Journal des débats.
Berlioz’s article is loosely in two parts. The first part is devoted to Strauss’s
orchestra – the range of instruments, the versatility of the players and ‘the fire,
the intelligence, and the rare rhythmic feeling which distinguishes this orchestra’
(quoted in Gartenberg 1974, p. 105). Yet the musicians’ ‘noticeable superiority’,
he observes, ‘is not the main achievement of the Vienna orchestra’. Rather, it is
their contribution to ‘an element of the art of music with which composers
concern themselves no more than do performers, and whose enormous power is
hardly beginning to be felt – this despite the rapid development which is observ-
able in all the other aspects of the art. I am speaking about Rhythm’ ([1837a]
1969). The second part of Berlioz’s essay is a plea for ‘the emancipation of
rhythm’, whereby rhythm is conceived as an independent dimension just as
important to musical organisation and expression as melody and harmony. The
true pioneers in the field of rhythm, he claims, are Beethoven and Weber,
representatives of what he calls the ‘New German School’ – and Johann Strauss
Sr (p. 337).8
While Berlioz’s article is brief and the section on rhythm refers to only two
musical examples (neither of which are from Strauss Sr waltzes), he does provide
© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Music Analysis © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
JOSEPH LANNER, JOHANN STRAUSS SR AND ‘THE FUTURE OF RHYTHM’ 3
a survey of rhythmic techniques that, in the hands of a skilled composer, can

open up new terrain in ‘the vast and fruitful realm of rhythm’ (p. 339). He begins
by observing that the prevalence of symmetrical periods based on phrases of four
or eight bars each is so great that composers fail to recognise the possibility of
other symmetrical groupings.9
Most musicians recognise as properly cast in rhythm only those melodies whose
phrases they call ‘square’, that is, which contain four or eight measures and end
on a strong beat. They do not seem aware that true ‘squareness’ is simply
symmetry, and that a given phrase whose first member consists of three or five
measures may be regular by reason of the comparable member with which it
concludes, making a total of six measures or of ten. (p. 337)
The use of irregular phrase organisations based on nonsymmetrical groupings,

such as 4 + 3 or 5 + 7, Berlioz continues, is another compositional resource,
which ‘in certain cases produces force or liveliness of expression’ (p. 337). The
abandonment of symmetrical groupings is particularly useful in dramatic genres,
especially in cases where the composer wishes to portray agitated emotions. He
cites two examples: the aria ‘Che farò senza Euridice’, from Gluck’s Orfeo ed
Euridice, and Agatha’s monologue from Weber’s Der Freischütz. He goes on to
provide a list of five rhythmic effects that ‘exist independently of the odd or even
number of measures or the symmetrical relation of phrases’ (p. 338):
1. ‘placing the accent on the weak beat instead of the strong’;

2. ‘the more or less rapid alternation of duple and triple [groupings]’;
3. ‘the simultaneous use of unlike phrases whose subdivisions bear to each
other no compatible relation and have no other points of contact than the
first beat’;
4. ‘the episodic introduction of a melody based on a ternary rhythm into one
based on four (or vice versa) of a melody in a different meter’; and
5. ‘the intermittent use of sounds quite independent of both the main melody
and the prevailing rhythm in the accompaniment, sounds which are sepa-
rated from one another by intervals that lengthen or diminish in propor-
tions not determinable in advance’.
Berlioz’s summary statement that follows his list of rhythmic effects is as

striking as it is original: ‘The combinations in the realm of rhythm must certainly
be as numerous as melodic ones, and the links between them could be made as
interesting as for melody. Nothing can be more obvious than that there are rhythmic
dissonances, rhythmic consonances, and rhythmic modulations’ (quoted in Holoman
1989, p. 269; emphasis in original).
While some of Berlioz’s categories are fairly straightforward, others are less so.
One wishes that he had provided musical illustrations, either from his own music
or from that of other composers, including Strauss. One wonders, for example,
exactly what he had in mind for his fifth category. But, as Mary I. Arlin points
Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

4 ERIC MCKEE
out, Berlioz, unlike his compatriot and adversary François-Joseph Fétis,

‘imparted neither a methodology nor a treatise describing rhythmic effects he
articulated in these paragraphs. Rather, Berlioz forged a powerful rhythmic
language in his compositions using composite meters, changing meters, simul-
taneous use of different meters, and rhythmic alteration’ (2000, p. 302). Philip
Friedheim (1976) provides a chronological study of Berlioz’s rhythmic proce-
dures in which he elucidates Berlioz’s sketch of rhythmic effects with a wealth of
examples.10
Given the title of his article, one might presume that Berlioz’s discussion of
rhythm is somehow related to Strauss’s waltz music. However, few of the effects
he describes are part of Strauss’s compositional language. Moreover, his expo-
sure to that repertoire was rather limited, which may explain why he did not refer
to any specific compositions.11 What is clear is that Berlioz was deeply impressed
with the high technical ability of Strauss’s players, individually and collectively,12
and that he recognised in Strauss a kindred spirit in the advancement of inno-
vative rhythmic techniques. He used his essay as a platform from which to (1)
proffer an evolutionary model of the history of music as it relates to harmony and
rhythm, (2) criticise those who stood against musical progress and (3) offer his
own ideas about new compositional possibilities within the realm of rhythm.13 As
Friedheim points out, Harold en Italie, composed three years earlier, ‘includes
almost every rhythmic device mentioned in the essays ... [and] is virtually a
textbook in rhythmic experiments, most of which seem to have been unique for
their time’ (1976, p. 17).
That Berlioz’s article served multiple agendas does not diminish its signifi-
cance in positioning Strauss as a trailblazer in the development of new rhythmic
techniques. In the few comments that are directed at his music, both in the
article and in Berlioz’s Memoirs, what seems to have most captured his imagi-
nation was the rhythmic design of Strauss’s waltz melodies – how they, in a game
of ‘rhythmic coquetting’, seem ‘to delight in teasing and tormenting the measure
in a thousand ways’ ([1837a] 1969, p. 339), and how they created metrical
dissonances by ‘the simultaneous use of different divisions of the bar’ (1969, p.
377). I continue Berlioz’s line of thought by examining the use of two-beat
melodic grouping patterns within a notated 3/4 metre by Strauss and his near-
contemporary Lanner to create rhythmic dissonances, which often (but not
necessarily) take the form of melodic hemiola, metrical modulation and
extended anacrusis.
The first technique corresponds to Berlioz’s fourth category – the simulta-
neous use of different groupings of beats in which only the downbeats are
aligned. More specifically, this involves the characteristic Viennese technique
of a hemiolic melody organised in 3/2 metre sounding against a continuous
oom-pah-pah accompaniment. However, as we shall see, Lanner and Strauss
complicate this technique by shifting the inception point of the melody’s met-
rical pattern in such a way that the downbeats of the melody and accompa-
niment are not aligned.

Berlioz draws an analogy between pitch and rhythm by suggesting that

passages containing such metrical conflicts are ‘dissonant’ and thus require
‘resolution’ to a more consonant metrical state. The movement from one state
to another entails a type of ‘metrical modulation’. A standard technique used
by both Lanner and Strauss is the motion from a state of metrical dissonance
to one of metrical consonance within the confines of an eight- or sixteen-bar
theme.
Finally, while Berlioz makes no mention of ‘extended anacruses’, they are
nonetheless a distinguishing feature of Strauss’s and especially Lanner’s waltz
music, and result very often in metrical dissonances (or disruptions). Before
proceeding to these rhythmic techniques, though, we must first clarify a distinc-
tion between the notated metre of Viennese waltzes and their perceived or
expressed metre, which I shall refer to as the primary metre.
Metre in the Viennese Waltz

The waltzes of Lanner and Strauss are all notated in 3/4, the standard notated
metre of the Viennese waltz. Several factors, however, prompt listeners to
interpret the primary metre as 6/4. First and foremost is the brisk tempo. In the
early history of the waltz there existed several types of spinning dances (Deut-
scher, Walzer, Allemande, Dreher, schwäbische Tanz, Schleifer, Strassburger and
Ländler), and tempo was an important factor in distinguishing among them. The
waltz ‘surpassed everything in headlong speed’, according to an article that
appeared in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden in 1797 (quoted in Reeser 1949,
p. 19).14 In an oversimplification, Johann Heinrich Kattfuss states that ‘there is
no difference in the steps of the waltz, Dreher or Ländler, except that the waltz is
danced quickly and the Ländler slowly’ (1800, p. 149). In the third volume of his
Encyklopädie der Leibesübungen, issued in 1818, Anton Vieth, an early promoter
of physical education for children, observes that ‘anyone with a feeling of rhythm
who enters a ballroom will at once be struck by the exaggerated tempo of the ...
waltzes ... I do not know why this spirit of super-haste and extreme tension is
becoming so general both in dancing and music’ (quoted in Jacob 1939, p. 45).
Travel writers throughout the first half of the nineteenth century marvelled at the
speed at which waltzers spun around the room. According to an Englishman
visiting Frankfurt in 1800, ‘[T]he man placed the palms of his hands gently
against the sides of his partner ... . His partner does the same, and instantly with
as much velocity as possible they turn around, and at the same time gradually
glide around the room’ (quoted in Reeser 1949, p. 19). In a travel report written
in 1833 for the Leipzig Zeitung für die elegante Welt, Heinrich Laube provides a
first-hand account of an evening at the Sperl dance hall under Strauss’s direc-
tion: ‘The beginning of each dance is characteristic. Strauss intones his trem-
bling preludes, longing to pour forth fully ... the Viennese girl snuggles deep in
her lad’s arm, and in the strangest way they sway to the beat ... . [T]hen suddenly
... the dance itself begins with whirling rapidity and the couples hurl themselves

6 ERIC MCKEE
into the maelstrom of gaiety’ (Laube [1834–7] 1973, Vol. 4, pp. 34–9; quoted
and translated in Gartenberg 1974, p. 98).
The first metronome markings that I am aware of for the ballroom Viennese
waltz appear in Henri Cellarius’s dance treatise, published in 1840. For the
valse à trois temps, which was the standard dance form of the waltz from about
1815 to 1840, Cellarius suggests a tempo of 66 beats per minute for the
notated bar (1840, p. 27); and for the valse à deux temps, a somewhat simpli-
fied version that became popular in the 1830s, he indicates a quicker tempo of
88 bpm for the notated bar (p. 34).15 In the secondary literature, Mosco
Carner (1948, p. 22) and Andrew Lamb (2001, p. 74) both give 70 bpm as
the standard tempo of the dotted minim, but neither cites any sources. Rudolf
Flotzinger offers a tempo of about 90 bpm for the notated bar, likewise
without a source (1998, Vol. 9, p. 1874). In practice it is doubtful that there
was a single standard tempo. Tempi fluctuated according to the size and archi-
tecture of the dance space, the material construction of the floor, the number
of people on the dance floor, the social standing of the participants, changes in
clothing fashion and the ability and inclination of the musicians. Furthermore,
the tempo could change within a waltz. For example, Thomas Wilson instructs
musicians to play the first ‘tune’ of a waltz at a slower tempo. This affords
dancers ‘the exhibition of greater variety of attitudes ... . The time of the music
may be somewhat increased on after the tune has been played through three or
four times’ (1816, p. lvii).
This evidence suggests that the tempo of the Viennese waltz during the first
part of the nineteenth century was fast, especially in comparison to most other
ballroom dances. Cellarius, Carner, Lamb and Flotzinger all suggest tempi
ranging from 66 to 90 bpm for the notated bar (dotted minim) and 198 to
270 bpm for the crotchet. As Justin London observes (2004, p. 46), for a variety
of reasons the preferred range of the primary beat (tactus) falls between 80 and
120 bpm.16 At the tempi suggested by Cellarius, Carner, Lamb and Flotzinger,
the pulse range of the dotted minim falls within or near this preferred range,
while the pulse range of the crotchet is well beyond its upper limits.17 This
suggests that for the Viennese waltz listeners are more inclined to hear the dotted
minim as the primary beat and the crotchet as a subdivision of the beat.
Duple groupings (6/4) of the dotted minims – as opposed to triple groupings
(9/4) – are established primarily by patterns of motivic repetition in which new
groups are initiated at the beginning of every other bar, and by a predominantly
two- or four-bar harmonic rhythm.18 Additionally, the step pattern of the valse à
trois temps requires the couple to execute a spiral to six crotchets. It was standard
practice for dancing masters to count out the six crotchets in order to keep their
waltzing students in time with the music. Thus, there is a strong basis for
congruence between the dancers’ six-beat spirals and the music’s primary 6/4
metre. Almost without exception, the accompaniments of the early waltzes of
Lanner and Strauss project a clear and uninterrupted 6/4 metre, which permits
a temporal correspondence between the dancers’ footwork and the music. After

Ex. 1 Hemiolic metrical dissonance in the Viennese waltz
1830, however, they introduce metrical shifts that force the waltzers to dance out
of time with the music.
Hemiola
For Richard Cohn (2001, p. 295), hemiola occurs ‘when a span of time is
trisected in place of an anticipated bisection’. This broad formulation encom-
passes hemiolas on the submetrical, metrical and hypermetrical levels. An
important distinction to be made is whether or not the entire texture is involved
in the trisection or only a single strand, such as the melody or bass line. In the
context of Viennese waltzes, hemiola is a purely melodic phenomenon; it occurs
when a melody temporarily shifts out of the primary 6/4 duple metre into a 3/2
triple metre. As shown in Ex. 1, the simultaneous projection of two conflicting
metrical layers creates a metrical dissonance (the circled notes in the example are
the pulses which conflict with the opposing metre). The downbeats of both
metres are aligned, the durations of their metrical patterns are equivalent (dotted
semibreve), and both metres share a common lower metrical level (at the level of
the crotchet), but the melody and accompaniment group the crotchets differ-
ently: the accompaniment maintains its dotted-minim groupings while the
melody shifts to minim groupings. In other words, the duration of the melody’s
primary beat is shortened by one crotchet, thereby effecting a quickening in the
tempo.
It is worth noting that the level of dissonance between the melody and the
accompaniment is not fixed, but rather fluctuates. Because the downbeats of the
two metrical grids are coordinated, the relationship between them begins in
a state of consonance (C) and progresses to a state of dissonance (D). The
convergence of two downbeats within two separate strands, especially after a
state of metrical dissonance, delivers a powerful metrical punch, which provides
the dancers a musical ‘lift’ on the first step of their six-step sequence. Indeed, the
first step is the most active step, requiring the most physical energy and motion.
Accordingly, Adolf Bernard Marx, who was one of the first to discuss the
relationship in the waltz of the dance to the music in any amount of detail,

8 ERIC MCKEE
advises waltz composers to ‘bring out the dancer’s first step’ through ‘melodic,
harmonic or rhythmic accentuations’ (1837–8, Vol. 2, pp. 55–6). In such cases
of close correlation between the dance and music, the music serves as a ‘sonic
analogue’, to use a term coined by Lawrence Zbikowski (2008, p. 286), for the
physical motions and exertions of the dancers.
As noted, the shift in the melody’s metrical grid is a result of a shift in its
pattern of accentuation from a stream of dotted minims to a stream of minims.
Dynamic accents, accents of duration and patterns of rhythmic repetition are the
most important factors in establishing and maintaining this metrical shift.
Importantly, the one accentual factor not available in supporting the melody’s
minim groupings in continuous succession is changes in harmony, which almost
always occur on the notated downbeats. While beat 1 of a melody’s 3/2 metre
may be supported by a change in harmony, beats 2 and 3 will not since they
occur on beats 3 and 2, respectively, of the notated metre. As previously
mentioned, however, harmonies in Viennese waltzes typically change every two
or four bars. Therefore, the harmonic rhythm will not typically play a consistent
role – either supportive or contradictory – at lower metrical levels in either the
primary 6/4 metre or the hemiolic 3/2 metre, but will tend to support the
identification of downbeats in both metres. Harmonic rhythm in Viennese
waltzes, therefore, is primarily a determinant of higher metrical levels (i.e.
hypermetre). Harmonic rhythm is not the only organising principle for the
grouping of the melody’s minims into patterns of three minims; it is often
accomplished by motivic parallelisms in which an opening motive is immediately
repeated. As we shall soon see, typically the hemiola pattern is initiated on the
first notated downbeat of a new melody and maintained for either part or all of
the melody.
Although certainly not with the same degree of frequency, Lanner and Strauss
also experimented with two-beat accentual patterns initiated on the third beat,
the second notated beat and the first beat of the second bar. Ex. 2 illustrates all
four types. In some instances, Types 2, 3 and 4 establish what could be consid-
ered metrically displaced hemiolas in which the melody’s downbeats are not
aligned with the downbeats of the accompaniment. Before turning to these, I
shall continue my discussion of the more standard Viennese type of hemiola, in
which the downbeats are aligned (Type 1).
Type 1: Two-Beat Groups Initiated on Beat One of the Notated Bar

Ex. 3 presents the first waltz from Lanner’s Die Werber, Op. 103, composed in
1835. As is typical, Waltz No. 1 comprises two contrasting sixteen-bar themes,
each closed with a perfect cadence – the first in the key of F minor and the
second in the home key of A major. The melodies of both themes are constructed
largely from minim units (grouping brackets have been provided for the first
theme). Melodic parallelisms, together with the dynamics, group the minim
units into a 3/2 metre whose downbeats are aligned with the downbeats of the

Ex. 2 Two-beat grouping patterns in the Viennese waltz

Type 1: Two-beat grouping pattern beginning on beat 1 of the notated metre
(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)
1 2 1 2

(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1)
1 2 1 2

(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)
1 2 1 2
Type 4: Two-beat grouping pattern beginning on the downbeat of the second bar
(1) (2) (3) (1) (2)
1 2 1 2
6/4 accompaniment. Except for bars 13–14, harmonies change every two or four
bars. Thus, the harmonic rhythm supports the two-bar patterns of both 6/4 and
3/2 metres. Notice that the three-crotchet anacrusis that begins the melody of the
second theme (bar 16) can be heard as a momentary shift back to the primary 6/4
metre. However, the perceptual momentum rendered by the melody’s preceding
3/2 metre easily allows one to maintain a 3/2 reading through the anacrusis and
into the second theme (I discuss the rhythmic and metrical qualities of this

10 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 3 Lanner, Werber-Walzer, Op. 103, Waltz No. 1 (1836)
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
F minor:
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 3
1 2
9
1 dolce
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 2
N
17
A major:
26 1 2
theme later in the article). Indeed, most modern recordings stress the second
note of the anacrusis, reinforcing a 3/2 reading. As we shall see, anacruses are an
important means of providing a sense of fluidity and continuity across an overly
determined two-bar musical and choreographic organisation.
As illustrated in Ex. 3, four characteristics distinguish Lanner’s and Strauss’s
approach to hemiola from that of previous composers.19
1. Both employ hemiola as a strong presentational element of waltz melo-

dies, most often initiated at the opening of a melody. While there are
exceptions, earlier composers tended to use hemiolas as markers of
cadential activity, typically in the bars immediately preceding the final
bar of a phrase.20
2. In the Viennese waltz, the shift in the melody from 6/4 to 3/2 entails a
shortening of the duration of the primary beat from a dotted minim to a

minim, resulting in a metric acceleration. The tempi of earlier dances in

3/4 (e.g. the minuet and the sarabande) that contain hemiolas are typi-
cally slower, so that the notated 3/4 is perceived as the primary metre.
Therefore, occurrences of cadential hemiola in such dances involve a
lengthening of the primary beat from a crotchet to a minim, which give
the melody its characteristic effect of slowing down (allargando) (Mirka
2009, p. 161).
3. The 3/2 metre of Viennese hemiolic melodies is clearly distinguished
from the 6/4 oom-pah-pah of the accompaniment, resulting in two met-
rically independent auditory streams. The superposition of two metres
with different grouping layers results in a ‘direct dissonance’ (Krebs 1999,
p. 45). Clear textual segmentation between the melody and accompani-
ment is rare in cadential hemiolas of earlier composers, where typically the
entire texture is involved in defining the metrical shift. Rather than a
superposition of two metres, cadential hemiolas typically involve a juxta-
position of two conflicting metres, which results in an ‘indirect dissonance’
(Krebs 1999, p. 45).
4. Motivic parallelisms, rather than harmonic rhythm, are the most important
perceptual inputs in our perception of Viennese hemiolic melodies. For
cadential hemiolas of earlier composers, harmonic rhythm is the most
important perceptual determinant (Mirka 2009, p. 161).
The vibrant rhythmic profile of Viennese hemiolic melodies strengthens a

cross-media correspondence between the dance and the music. In much the same
way that spectators viewed the cavalcade of beautifully dressed women swirling
in endless variety before their gaze, listeners experienced a seemingly endless
succession of beautiful, rhythmically vivacious melodies, each complete in itself
and pleasing to the ear. In their well-formedness and by their twofold iterations
(through repeat marks), Viennese waltz melodies are strongly presentational in
function, in effect exhibitionist in character. In pointing only to themselves,
without motivic reference to previous or ensuing themes, waltz melodies are
presented to listeners as the sole objects of their attention. In other words, they are
entities whose parts, while not stated simultaneously, express a single, unified
whole. Raymond Monelle (2000, pp. 90–114) uses the term ‘lyrical time’ for such
temporal units and describes them as evocative, descriptive and picturesque. A
complete Viennese waltz may be heard as a succession of suspended temporal
units or images that in and of themselves do not suggest any conventional Classical
narrative order of cause and effect.
The metrical dissonances created by these well-dressed melodies, which glide
so effortlessly atop the steady stream of accompaniment, not only draw attention
to the melody, but also result in a clear perceptual rift between the melody and
the accompaniment. In this way the effort and physicality of the (female)
dancer’s footwork, as modelled by the oom-pah-pah accompaniment, is sepa-
rated from the lyrical contemplation of her beauty.

12 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 4 D–C progressions within an eight-bar waltz theme

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
a) D C D C
b) D C
c) D C
d) D C
Ex. 5 Lanner, Marien-Walzer, Op. 143, second half of Waltz No. 2 (1839)
D C D C
1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2
dolce 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
D C D C
1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 3 1
10 1 2
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
Metrical Progressions
Berlioz provides no examples illustrating his notion of ‘rhythmic modulation’. A
common feature of Viennese waltz music, however, is the progression from a
state of metrical dissonance to a state of metrical consonance within the confines
of an eight- or sixteen-bar theme, and perhaps this is the sort of thing Berlioz had
in mind when he wrote his article. Krebs (1999) has explored such metrical
progressions in the instrumental music of Schumann. He identifies three possi-
ble progressions between metrical consonance and dissonance: C–D–C, C–D
and D–C. The first two progressions are rarely used by Lanner and Strauss The
last progression, however, is a hallmark of the Viennese waltz. Ex. 4 illustrates
the most common proportional schemes associated with D–C progressions
within an eight-bar waltz theme. In most cases the resolution to the primary
metre is abrupt rather than gradual.21 Ex. 5 provides an example of Scheme a,
and Ex. 6 provides an example of Scheme b. In such passages one can clearly
hear the appropriateness of the metaphors ‘metrical dissonance’ and ‘metrical
consonance’. The resolution of a metrical dissonance involves the progression

Ex. 6 Lanner, Paradies-Soirée-Walzer, Op. 52, first half of Waltz No. 1 (1831)
D C
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2
dolce 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
D C
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2
9 1
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
from a state of tension to a state of relaxation, and its effect is quite similar to that
of the resolution of a long appoggiatura (Krebs 1999, p. 109) or the completion
of a harmonic progression that begins off the tonic. Very often the movement
from metrical dissonance to metrical consonance is aligned with a locally stable
point of harmonic arrival. For instance, in Ex. 5 the arrivals of metrical conso-
nances are aligned with the arrivals of V and I. Notice also that the durational
proportions of the D–C pattern in Ex. 5 (2 + 2) are perfectly coordinated with
the harmonic rhythm, as well as the two conflicting metrical patterns. As seen in
Ex. 3, however, a one-bar anacrusis provides continuity across the segmentation
boundaries of the metre and harmonic rhythm, saving it from the perils of an
overly determined grouping structure.
Ex. 7, the third waltz from Lanner’s Marien-Walzer, Op. 143 (1839), provides
a rare example of a waltz theme that progresses from metrical consonance to
metrical dissonance; here the progression is gradual rather than abrupt. The first
half of Waltz No. 3 is organised as a large sentence proportioned 4 + 4 + 8. The
opening four-bar melodic segments are completely in phase with the primary 6/4
metre. The tonal and metrical stability and the rigid congruence between group-
ing and metre of the opening eight bars all serve to highlight the instability and
non-congruence of the second eight bars.
The continuation to the cadence that begins in bar 9 opens with a four-note
motive that is repeated four times. Upon its immediate repetition the first note
of the motive, F, enters a beat early as a syncopation; and the F again enters
early on the pick-up to bar 13. Although heard within the primary 6/4 metre,
these syncopations establish a two-beat pattern of accentuation which becomes
more prominent – and thus rhythmically more dissonant (as does the underlying
harmonic support) – as the 6
phrase nears its goal. The force with which the music
drives to the cadential V in bar 14 effects a metrical shift in both the melody
4
and the accompaniment. For the melody, the four-note motive upon its final

14 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 7 Lanner, Marien-Walzer, Op. 143, Waltz No. 3 (1839)
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
4 4
RD MD
1 2 3
syncopation syncopation no syncopation
9 ! !
1 2 1 2 1 2 1
2=1
A major:
C
17
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
2 2 4
C
25
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
2 2 4
No. 4 2=1 2 1 2 1 2 etc.
appearance now enters on beat 2 of a clearly articulated 3/2 metre. Thus overall
there is a graduated shift from rhythmic dissonance (RD) – as articulated by the
syncopations and a pattern of two-beat melodic groups – towards full-fledged
metrical dissonance (MD).22 In the accompaniment, the motion from an applied

leading-note chord to the cadential 64 , together with the crescendo to forte,

suggests reinterpreting bar 14 as a downbeat of the primary 6/4 metre. This shift
results not only in a metrically accented cadence, but also in the succession of
two downbeats from the end of the first reprise back to the opening bar of the
waltz. Dancers who heeded the music would thus find themselves temporarily
out of time with it.
One compositional outcome of this metrical mêlée is that it prepares the
entrance of the second half of the waltz, which begins with a weak-beat solo
anacrusis. As we have seen in Ex. 3, such one-bar anacruses are a hallmark of
Lanner’s phrase rhythm (not as much with Strauss) and are characterised by
a melody that is out of phase with the primary 6/4 metre (see the grouping
brackets beneath the score in the example). The four-bar introduction
(Eingang) that begins Waltz No. 4 re-establishes an in-phase phrase rhythm.
Thus, for the entire second half of Waltz No. 3, dancers would be waltzing out
of time with the metre – unless, of course, they took it upon themselves to
realign their steps.
Type 2: Two-Beat Groupings Initiated on Beat 3 of the Notated Bar

I continue my investigation of Lanner’s and Strauss’s rhythmic practices by
exploring two-beat patterns of accentuation that are not aligned with the primary
downbeats of the accompaniment. These correspond to Types 2, 3 and 4, as
shown in Ex. 2. An underlying assumption is that Type 1 represents the nor-
mative hemiolic relation between the melody and the accompaniment, primarily
because the lengths of their metrical units are equivalent and their downbeats are
aligned. The alignment is particularly important in that it does not disturb the
congruence between the dancers’ twirling step sequence and the opposing met-
rical patterns of the melody and the accompaniment. In this context, the melodic
models shown in Types 2, 3 and 4 may be perceived as shifted out of place. The
nonaligned downbeats increase the level of metrical dissonance. Krebs (1999,
pp. 33–9) refers to this type of metrical dissonance as ‘displacement dissonance’,
although his examples involve the nonaligned ‘association of layers of equivalent
cardinality’ (p. 33). Furthermore, Krebs does not define the metrical status of
the nonaligned layer.
The prevalence of this type of metrical dissonance may suggest that, by the
time Strauss published his first waltz, this was already an established composi-
tional technique.23 After 1830 both composers employ two-beat melodic group-
ings initiated on the first, second and third beats, as well as, rarely, on the
downbeat of the second notated bar. While these two-beat grouping patterns
conflict with the primary metre, they do not necessarily coalesce into a larger
metrical pattern (i.e. 3/2 or 2/2). Indeed, because the downbeats of any larger
patterns created by two-beat groupings initiated on beat 2 or 3 will be at odds
with the harmonic rhythm, the establishment of a displaced 3/2 or 2/2 metrical
pattern requires special effort. In such cases where it does occur, as we will see,

16 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 8 Strauss, Täuberln-Walzer, Op. 1, Waltz No. 1 (1827)

D C? D C?
(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
D C
(1) (2) (3)
(8) 1 2
cresc.
1 2 1 2 (1?) 1 2 1 2 2
Lanner and Strauss rely on dynamic markings and clear patterns of motivic
repetition to establish and maintain the competing metrical layer.
Exs 8–11 present four passages in which two-beat melodic groups are initiated
on the third beat of a bar. The first waltz of Strauss’s Tauberln-Walzer, Op. 1,
shown in Ex. 8, opens with a succession of three minim groupings, beginning
with the pick-up to the first bar. The minim groups are unequivocally established
by the repetition of a two-note motive, the accent marks and the phrasing slurs.
Taken together, the three minim groups form a series of appoggiatura figures
that arpeggiate the tonic triad. The melodic phrasing slur in bar 3 appears to
support a return to the primary metre; however, both the C–B accented upper
neighbour figure and the tonic arpeggiation (G–B–E–G) that follows delineate
tonally unified gestures that allow one to continue the minim groupings. The
E–F appoggiatura figure that concludes the opening four-bar segment confirms,
as does the accented B that begins the second four-bar segment, the interpre-
tation of the opening A as a metrically accented appoggiatura (despite the
absence of an accent mark).
In bar 6 the durational values of the third of three appoggiaturas (E–F) are
accelerated from crotchets to quavers. The quavers continue under a long
phrasing slur to the end of the penultimate bar. While the accentual support for
minim groupings in the second four-bar phrase is somewhat weaker, there is
nothing in the melody that strongly contradicts it. Nonetheless, a 3/2 reading
suggested by the opening two bars remains attenuated at best, owing largely to
a lack of consistent motive parallelisms at the two-bar level – the two-bar
openings of each four-bar segment are answered by contrasting ideas rather than
by varied or literal repetitions. As we shall see, two-bar motivic parallelisms are
vital in confirming and maintaining a displaced 3/2 metre.24
In the second half of the waltz, metrical dissonance is extended to four bars.
A series of double-neighbour figures inverts the descending arpeggiation of the

Ex. 9 Strauss, Krapfen-Walden-Walzer, Op. 12, Waltz No. 3 (1828)
D C D C
1 2 3 1 2 3
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
D C
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
(8) N N
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
opening two bars into an ascending arpeggiation. Notice that in bar 11 Strauss
accelerates the durational values of the arpeggiation from figurated minims to
crotchets, which increases the music’s sense of forward momentum. Indeed, the
forceful arrival of the forte E major chord in bar 12 calls into question its status
as a weak metrical beat within the primary metre. The subsequent passage,
however, unequivocally supports odd-numbered bars as metrically strong and
restores metrical consonance between the melody and the accompaniment.
The third waltz of Strauss’s Krapfen-Walden-Walzer, Op. 12 (1828), shown in
Ex. 9, opens with a similar passage.25 It is important to note the role not only of
phrasing slurs and small-scale motivic repetition, but also of dynamic markings
in the establishment of displaced minim groupings, especially in cases where the
groupings establish a competing 3/2 metre against the accompaniment. Since
changes in harmony cannot be coordinated with the downbeats of a displaced
3/2, Strauss must resort to other means of accentuation. Such detailed attention
to dynamics is rare in waltz themes that do not contain metrical dissonances,
which suggests that Strauss also wanted his performers to play against the
primary metre.
The sense of a displaced 3/2 hemiolic pattern is much stronger in Op. 12
because the gesture of an ascending octave naturally gives greater weight to the
lower octave. Also, the succession of octaves in each case arpeggiates the under-
lying harmony, thereby creating a tonally unified three-beat gesture (where the
beat is the minim). Despite the greater salience of the displaced two-bar group-
ings, the opening two bars of each four-bar segment are not immediately
answered by parallel statements. Instead, bars 3–4 and 7–8 provide contrasting
material that restores metrical consonance.

18 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 10 Type 2a metrical dissonance in displaced hemiolas
In the second reprise, Strauss maintains a displaced 3/2 metre in the melody
for six bars. Metrical consonance is regained in the final two bars. Whereas the
first eight-bar reprise is subdivided into two parallel sub-phrases (4 + 4), the
second reprise is organised in sentence form (2 + 2 + 4). The basic idea 4
is
comprised of three ascending two-note gestures harmonised with a V 3 − I6
progression. The second statement of the basic idea is a near-literal transposition
to the dominant. While the third statement of the basic idea returns to the tonic,
it intensifies the melodic activity: it opens with the widest (and technically most
difficult) leap of the waltz. The threefold statement of the basic idea – something
that we did not see in the preceding examples – both confirms the displaced 3/2
metre and allows it to anchor itself in the mind of the listener.
Notice that although the entire eight-bar theme is marked by a progression
from metrical dissonance to consonance, on a lower level each individual state-
ment of the basic idea follows the same path in both the tonal and the metrical
realms. Metrically, dissonance is strongest at the beginning of the basic idea,
where the nonaligned downbeats between the melody and accompaniment are
heard in direct succession. As Ex. 10 illustrates, the dissonances involved in
Type 2 groupings are more deeply embedded within the metrical organisation
than those of Type 1.26 Strauss’s basic idea thus progresses to a state of relative
metrical consonance: the last beat of the melody’s 3/2 metre is the only minim
beat that is aligned with a minim beat of the accompaniment’s 6/4 metre. This
movement from tension to relaxation is also present in the tonal organisation.
Not only is each statement of the basic idea harmonised with a dominant-to-
tonic progression (or secondary dominant–to–dominant), but the strongest
melodic dissonances occur in the opening two-note gestures of the basic ideas –
the F in bar 9 and the C in bar 11 are both non-harmonic notes (upper
neighbours) that form dissonant intervals with three pitches of the supporting
harmony – and the third statement of the basic idea begins with a wide leap to
a dissonant seventh. In contrast, each statement of the basic idea concludes with
an ascending octave sounding the root of the local tonic.
Ex. 11 provides the second half of Waltz No. 2 from Lanner’s Musikvereins-
Tänze, Op. 45, published in March 1830. As in the previous examples,

Ex. 11 Lanner, Musikvereins-Tänze, Op. 45, third part of Waltz No. 2 (1830)
D
(3) 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2
(16)
sempre staccato
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2
25
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
Ex. 12 Type 2b metrical dissonance in displaced hemiolas
consistent minim groupings are initiated on the third notated beat. The differ-
ence here is that the first downbeat of the displaced 3/2 pattern is located on the
third beat of the first notated bar rather than on the pick-up to the first bar.
Lanner organises the minim groups into 3/2 metre by means of dynamic accents
and motivic parallelisms. Overall the opening reprise is organised as an 8 + 8
parallel period with each phrase made up of four statements of the motive, each
of them displaced by two crotchets. As previously mentioned, such motivic
repetition – as well as the parallel interpretations that it engenders – is vital for
the establishment of a displaced metrical pattern.
The nature of the metrical displacement found in this waltz theme and the
level of its metrical dissonance is slightly different from that of the preceding
two musical examples (see again Ex. 10). As shown in Ex. 12, the competing
downbeats are separated by two crotchets rather than one, and the third beat of

20 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 13 Strauss, Krapfen-Walden-Walzer, Op. 12, second half of Waltz No. 6 (1828)
D
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
(16)
1 2 1 2 1 2 1
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
25
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
Rebarred version
3 3
6
3 3
6
the melody’s 3/2 is now aligned with the downbeat of the accompaniment’s 6/4.
The net result is that the opening metrical dissonance is less deeply embedded,
while the consonance that follows is more deeply embedded. Finally, notice that
upon the repeat of the reprise the opening four pitches of the melody are now
heard as articulating the third beat of a 3/2 bar.
The second reprise of the sixth waltz of Strauss’s Krapfen-Walden-Walzer, Op.
12 (1828), is reproduced in Ex. 13. This passage also maintains a displaced
minim grouping throughout the entire sixteen-bar theme. Indeed, the incessant
repetition of an arpeggiated four-note motive overdetermines the minim beat
level, thereby underscoring the metrical dissonance between the melody and
accompaniment. In this case, however, the minim groupings seem to fall more
comfortably into 2/2 duple metre rather than 3/2 triple metre (although neither
metrical reading is entirely satisfactory).
The melody is organised into two parallel phrases (four bars each within the
notated metre) that are repeated an octave higher in bars 25–32. A 2/2 reading
is encouraged not only by the motivic parallelisms, but also by the strong topical

allusion to the military march. In the opening bar, the motive is twice repeated
without variation over a tonic harmony; it is then repeated twice more over
dominant harmony. The downbeat of the third 2/2 bar, however, is not sup-
ported by a change of harmony, which occurs on the second minim beat.
Nonetheless, the ascending arpeggio is now answered by a descending arpeggio,
completing a melodic arch and thereby establishing a strong sense of melodic
unity. The repetition of the first phrase begins with the notated pick-up to bar
21, which, based on its parallelism to the first phrase, may be heard as a metrical
downbeat. Beneath the piano reduction I have re-barred the melody to show this
interpretation more clearly.
To further complicate matters, the harmonic rhythm suggests hearing even-
numbered bars as metrically strong within the accompaniment’s 6/4 metre. After
the first bar, each harmony is prolonged for two bars, emphasising the downbeats
of even-numbered bars. Upon the repetition of the reprise, the tonic of the first
bar serves as the second bar of a two-bar prolongation. The even-numbered
strong beats in the accompaniment allow for the simultaneous alignment of
downbeats between the two metrical patterns every four bars; such alignment
between downbeats could never occur with odd-numbered downbeats. Strauss
prepares the even-numbered metrical scheme of the accompaniment in the
preceding waltz (not shown), which also has a two-bar harmonic rhythm begin-
ning with the second bar.
The melody’s 2/2 metre, dotted rhythms and vigorous arpeggiations
strongly invoke the topic of a military march, a crass and inappropriate intru-
sion into the cultivated domain of the ballroom dance. The resulting topical
clash between the heavy-footed, masculine associations of the march and the
graceful, feminine associations of the waltz results in a confusion of meanings
and metres. This is very odd music, and Strauss may have been drawing on
extra-musical associations with which his listeners were familiar but which are
unknown to us today.
One wonders exactly what effect this music had upon the dancers. Not only
is there metrical dissonance between nonaligned metrical groupings, but the
primary metre of the accompaniment is shifted as well. Certainly if the dancers
were paying heed to the music, the male dancer (for it was customary for the
male partner to lead the dance) would have to choose to follow either the melody
or the accompaniment. In the case of the hemiolic melodies examined earlier, he
would be able to adapt more or less easily to the metrical scheme of the melody,
whether aligned with the accompaniment or not, once he locked onto the
downbeats. This is because the length of a hemiolic bar is the same as that of the
dancers’ twirl. But woe to him who chose to follow Strauss’s 2/2 march melody!
Not only would he and his partner be unable to coordinate their feet to the
music, but in their futile attempts they would run the risk of an ungraceful
misstep or, worse yet, a stumble or fall, much to the amusement of the side
gallery and perhaps of Strauss and his musicians.27 I return to the issue of
dance-and-music relations at the end of the article.

22 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 14 Strauss, Mittel gegen den Schlaf, Op. 65, second half of Waltz No. 3 (1833)
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
17
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2=1 2 3 1 2
25 1 2
1 2 1 2 1 2=1 2 1
Rebarred version
2=1 2 3 1 2
5
Type 3: Two-Beat Groupings Initiated on Beat 2 of the Notated Bar

Ex. 14 reproduces the second half of Waltz No. 3 from Strauss’s Mittel gegen den
Schlaf, Op. 65, which was premiered on 28 August 1833 at the Sperl dance hall.
The melody exhibits the verve for which Strauss was to become famous. The 3/2
metre, initiated on the second crotchet beat of the first notated bar, is maintained
throughout most the reprise. Like that of displaced hemiolas initiated on the
third notated beat (Type 2), the close proximity of the competing downbeats
results in an acute metrical dissonance, as shown in Ex. 15. While the downbeats
of the displaced metre in Type 2 anticipate the downbeats of the accompani-
ment’s primary metre, the downbeats of Type 3 continually lag behind. Perhaps
the metrical lag of the melody was intended as a sonic analogue of drifting off to
sleep, as Strauss’s title suggests. As can be seen, a consistent point of alignment
between the two metrical schemes occurs on beat 2 of each metrical scheme.
In order to clarify the melody’s grouping organisation – which provides
accentual cues for the rendering of the displaced 3/2 metre – I have provided a
rhythmic reduction and normalisation beneath the score. After the opening tonic
arpeggiation, the melody continues with an appoggiatura figure repeated twice
over a dominant and once more over a tonic harmony, thus establishing a 1 + 3
grouping organisation. The motivic repetitions and appoggiaturas of this

Ex. 15 Type 3 metrical dissonance in displaced hemiolas
characteristically Viennese melodic design help determine the triple grouping of

the minim beats. The tight-knit, albeit misaligned, organisation of the first half
is unravelled in the second by a rogue supertonic (bars 27–29) whose extended
three-bar prolongation disrupts the consistent two-bar harmonic rhythm estab-
lished earlier. One consequence of this disruption is that, in bars 6–8 of the
re-barred version, the harmonic rhythm and melodic organisation are at odds
with each other, each suggesting different grouping interpretations. The melodic
leap in bar 7 up to the F – the registral high point of the waltz – supports the
continuation of the melody’s 3/2 metre. The prolongation of the supertonic over
the bar line, however, undercuts the strength of this perception: in all preceding
bars, downbeats were supported by a change in harmony. An even more dis-
ruptive effect follows, however: the weak-beat entrance of the cadential domi-
nant. The listener’s preference for a metrically stable cadence (Lerdahl and
Jackendoff’s Musical Preference Rule 7), and especially for a cadential 64 to fall
on the downbeat of the bar, strongly encourage him or her to reinterpret
metrically the second beat of bar 7 as a downbeat in both the melody and the
accompaniment.28 Metrical clarity and stability are restored in the waltz that
follows.
Two-Beat Groupings Beginning on Beat 1 of the Second Notated Bar

The second reprise of Waltz No. 4 from Lanner’s Lenz-Blüthen-Walzer, Op. 118
(1837), given in the last two lines of Ex. 16, shows a passage in which two-beat
groupings are initiated on the first beat of the second notated bar (Type 4). The
explosive entrance of the melody in fanfare rhythm seems at first to fall within the
accompaniment’s metre (with a syncopated upbeat). Beginning in the second
bar, however, the melody, through dynamic accents and a consistent pattern of
motivic repetition, establishes its own accentual pattern comprising two-beat
groups organised in triple metre. Separated by one notated bar, the downbeats
of the two metres are maximally out of phase with each other. However, since the
melodic downbeat is aligned with second beat of the accompaniment’s 6/4, the
resulting metrical dissonance is milder that that found in Type 2 and Type 3.

24 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 16 Lanner, Lenz-Blüthen-Walzer, Op. 118, second half of Waltz No. 3 and Waltz
No. 4 (1837)
17
1 spiccato 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
25
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
melodic groups:
No. 4 dolce 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
1=2
9 1 2
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
17
2=1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
1 2 3 1 2 3 2 1 2
1 2
26
2 1 2 1 2 1 2

The successful employment of this type of metrical relationship poses a

compositional challenge: given the strong accentual patterning of the melody,
the listener is apt to hear the accompaniment’s downbeats as realigned with
those of the melody. Again, as we have repeatedly seen, Lanner and Strauss rely
on dynamic markings to clarify the perceptual independence of the two metrical
strands (and thereby intensify the metrical dissonance). The accompaniment’s
primary 6/4 metre is reinforced by a four-bar pattern of terrace dynamics,
alternating between ff and p. Also notice that the opening melodic gesture begins
with an sf. Upon first hearing, this dynamic accent may be interpreted as a
weak-beat syncopation within the primary 6/4 metre. However, upon the reprise
this dynamic accentuation is heard within the context and perceptual momen-
tum of the established 3/2 metre. In this new context, the sf is no longer heard
as a syncopation but rather as a strong accentual cue that reinforces the melody’s
3/2 metre.
Extended Anacruses
Ex. 16 places this passage in context in order to draw attention to another
hallmark of Viennese waltz music that often results in metrical disruptions: the
one-bar solo anacrusis. We have already seen such anacruses in several excerpts
from Lanner’s waltzes. By 1830 extended anacruses – most often one bar in
length but occasionally longer – were a standard feature of Lanner’s waltzes
(Strauss would follow suit about three years later). Waltz No. 4 opens with a
one-bar anacrusis marked dolce. The smooth, ascending melodic gesture persua-
sively – if somewhat coquettishly – leads to the downbeat of bar 2. A good bit of
the listener’s sense of expectation that this melodic gesture is leading to a new
structural beginning is created by the absence of the accompaniment, which,
considering the genre, is the sine qua non of the music. The re-entrance of the
oom-pah-pah accompaniment, together with a two-bar harmonic rhythm, pro-
vides a structural starting point that shifts the downbeats of the primary metre to
the even-numbered bars. Since the previous waltz ended on beat 2, the anacrusis
results in the succession of two metrically weak bars. More specifically, since bar
32 of Waltz No. 3 is the second beat of a duple pattern, we expect the first bar
of the following waltz to be a downbeat.
As in Ex. 16, metrical shifts wrought by one-bar anacruses are most often
accompanied by a marked contrast in melodic style. Anacrustic themes are
characterised by cantabile melodies (often supported by another voice in parallel
thirds, sixths or octaves), soft dynamics, legato articulations and a dolce, amoroso
or delicatissimo expression marking. In other words, they are strongly feminine (at
least as defined by nineteenth-century European culture). The solo entrance of
the anacrustic melody temporarily arrests the flow of time, thereby commanding
the listener’s full attention.29 The succession of two metrically weak bars not only
highlights the entrance of the theme but also provides the listener with a con-
ceptual space in which to savour its sensual beauty.30 Within a broader narrative

26 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 17 Common variants of a standard Viennese rhythmic pattern involving a

one-bar anacrusis
continuations
etc.
solo anacruses etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.
design, these soft, flowing melodies are typically flanked, as in the present case,
by themes that are more assertive and rhythmically active in nature.
As shown by the brackets, the grouping organisation of the anacrustic
melody is consistently out of phase with its metrical organisation. This is
because each melodic gesture is itself anacrustic, which softens the articulative
impact of the downbeats. The rhythmic design of this melody was a particular
favourite of Lanner’s. Ex. 17 provides some common variants. As Ex. 18 illu-
strates, an interesting quality of this design is that it can easily accommodate
two different metrical readings – 6/4 or 3/2 – and as a result has a chameleon-
like nature.
There is nothing in the melody’s accentual pattern that precludes the percep-
tion of one or the other. It is largely the preceding metrical context that will
determine its metrical landscape.31 We saw this design in the second half of the
first waltz from Lanner’s Werber-Walzer (see again Ex. 3), where the anacrustic
melody was preceded by a strongly articulated 3/2 hemiolic melody. The per-
ceptual momentum predisposes the listener to perceive the anacrustic melody
within the existing 3/2 metrical framework (despite the three-crotchet slur in bar
16).32 If there were any doubt, bars 21–23 confirm the 3/2 reading. As for the
first half of Waltz No. 4 from Lanner’s Lenz-Blüthen Waltzer, I suggest that we
hear the melody most comfortably within the primary metre of the accompani-
ment, since it continues the metrical scheme of the preceding waltz. The accom-
paniment of the second half of the waltz, which we looked at previously, abruptly

Ex. 18 Lanner, Lenz-Blüthen-Walzer, Op. 118: two metrical interpretations of Waltz

No. 4, bars 1–4
2 1 2 1 2
1) dolce etc.
1 2 1 2
3 1 2 3 1 2 3
2) dolce etc.
1 2 1 2
resumes an even-numbered metrical scheme, resulting in the succession of two

downbeats – a metrical hiccup, so to speak. Extraordinarily, these successive
downbeats are followed by yet another downbeat in the melody.
To summarise, the metrically normative state of a sixteen-bar waltz theme
in 6/4 metre comprising two eight-bar phrases is for it to begin with a down-
beat and to end with a weak beat, as shown in Ex. 19a. Conversely, as shown
in Ex. 19b, sixteen-bar themes that open with a one-bar anacrusis will begin
with a weak beat (beat 2 of the first notated bar) and end with a strong beat
(beat 1 of the last notated bar). As in the Lenz-Blüthen Walzer (Ex. 16), met-
rical disruptions will occur when an anacrustic theme is placed between two
normative themes (two successive weak beats from the last bar of the first
theme to the first bar of the second, anacrustic theme, and two successive
strong beats from the last bar of the anacrustic theme to the first bar of the
third theme). In the time period of my study, 1826–36, Lanner used one-bar
anacruses to a far greater extent than Strauss. The majority of waltzes Lanner
composed after 1834 contain at least one extended anacrusis, and the variety
of approaches he takes in rendering this melodic technique is remarkable. An
interesting development, beginning with the Olymps-Walzer, Op. 67 (1833), is
that he occasionally adjusts the lengths of his themes, presumably in order to
avoid metrical disruptions. As illustrated in Ex. 19c, in a succession of three
themes in which the middle one is anacrustic, Lanner deletes the metrically
weak bar from the end of the first theme and adds a metrically weak bar to the
end of the second anacrustic theme. These adjustments allow the primary 6/4
metre to continue uninterrupted through all three themes. Both of these cor-
rectives can be seen in the Werber-Walzer.

28 ERIC MCKEE
Ex. 19 Phrase rhythms in waltz themes

a) Normal phrase rhythm
8 8
9
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
b) Anacrustic phrase rhythm
8 8
9
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
c) Corrective phrase rhythm in a sequence of three themes
theme 1
8 7
9
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
theme 2
8 9
9
add
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
theme 3
8 8
9
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
Dance-Music Relations
The metrical dissonances and disruptions discussed in this article have no
correlation to the dancers’ choreography. Apparently, most waltzers were able to
dance through these passages without losing their footing; they may even have
enjoyed the experience of dancing against the music.33 In such instances the
music takes the prominent role, not only asserting a controlling presence apart
from the dance but also creating a perceptual rift between sound and spectacle.
Moreover, these rifts violate a cardinal rule of functional dance music: that it
‘should not be in the forefront, obscuring the dance or distracting the audience
from the movement of the dancers’ (Krumhansl and Schenck 1997, p. 65). This
conventional sentiment can be found as early as 1746 in Charles Batteux’s

treatise Les Beaux-arts réduits à un même principe. Batteux observes that ‘dance
music must not be distractingly brilliant. It should merely hold out a helping
hand in order to bar with greater precision the character and movement of the
dance’ ([1746] 1981, p. 51).
In his recent book on the rise of popular music in the nineteenth century,
Derek B. Scott cites the significance of this process whereby Lanner and
Strauss increasingly introduced elements into their music that were not
directly tethered to the choreographic requirements of the dancers. Drawing
on the work of Howard Becker (1982), Scott suggests that waltz music com-
posed before 1830 falls into the category of a ‘craft world’ as opposed to an
‘art world’. However, ‘it is not unusual’, Scott observes, ‘to find that a craft
world changes into an art world. This happens when values extraneous to the
functional purpose become important’ (2008, p. 94). In other words, if Lan-
ner’s and Strauss’s waltz music was ever to aspire to a goal beyond that of a
pretty metronome for the dancers, it had to break free from an overly pre-
dictable phrase rhythm that results from an unmitigated reliance on eight-bar
phrase lengths in lockstep with a 6/4 metre.
Paralleling the development of these rhythmic techniques is a remarkable shift
in the iconography of dance orchestras from the eighteenth century to the
opening decades of the nineteenth century.34 In eighteenth-century depictions,
musicians, if included at all, are rarely given visual prominence. And when they
are shown, one seldom sees the orchestra leader. Almost without exception,
however, beginning in the early nineteenth century, depictions of ballroom
dancing include not only the dance orchestra in a visually prominent position,
but also a leader standing with a violin. And in many cases the visual presence of
the leader is accentuated by his position relative to the viewer: instead of facing
the musicians, he faces the viewer, often with his violin bow held high above his
head. In the print reproduced as Plate 1, the illustrator depicts the mayhem
resulting from a galop gone wild. The galop, a popular ballroom dance in Vienna
during the 1820s and 1830s that was notated in 2/4, required dancing couples to
embrace torso to torso (as in the waltz) and, facing the same line of direction,
race around the room using a step that combined a sweeping glissade with a
chassé on alternate feet, all at approximately 126 bars per minute. It often served
as the final dance at a ball.
Two features of the print are notable. First, observe the presence of the
spectators on the dance floor taking pleasure in viewing the dancers’ various
catastrophes. A group of men are assembled in the middle of the cyclonic whirl,
which was the best location for watching the women dancers since they occupied
the inner circle of the dancing couples. One gentleman at the far right employs
a monocle to improve his vision; voyeurism, and specifically the male gaze, is
thus a central theme of this print. What is also striking in this visual display is the
foregrounding of the music itself by different iconic means. The composer of the
music, Johann Strauss, stands atop a podium in the centre of the visual frame,
facing the dancers and us, the viewers of the picture. The dynamic volume of the

30 ERIC MCKEE
Plate 1 Der grosse Galopp von Joh. Strauss: Andreas Geiger, after Johann Christian
Scholler, 1839 (Wien Museum, Vienna)
music is represented by the immense size of the orchestra (51 players are visible).
A wide range of timbres is shown by the variety of instruments. And finally, the
presence and psychic power of the music are suggested by the visible effects it has
upon the dancers. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Strauss seems to control and
manipulate the physical motions of the dancers. In his autobiography Wagner
recounts the behavioural effects of Strauss’s music in Vienna during the summer
of 1832 at the Sträusselsäle, when he was but nineteen years old: ‘I shall never
forget the enthusiasm, bordering on derangement, generated in that extraordi-
nary figure Johann Strauss whenever he played ... and veritable whinnies of
pleasure from the audience, indubitably attributable more to his music than to
the drinks they had enjoyed, whipped up the ecstasies of this magician of the
violin to heights that nearly frightened me’ (1983, p. 63).
This iconographic shift reflects the rise of the composer-conductor as a
popular public figure in nineteenth-century urban society and a shift in the
dance/music hierarchy whereby dance music is as important as, or more

important than, the dance itself. As Berlioz recounts in his memoir, ‘[S]ome-
times, when one of the new waltzes which [Strauss] writes for every society ball
makes a special hit, the dancers stop to applaud and the ladies go over to his
rostrum and throw him their bouquets’ (1969, p. 377). And at least as early as
the 1820s, dance music introduced in the Viennese ballroom was also performed
during the summer months in public parks and in restaurants year round,
without dancing.
According to Berlioz, Strauss’s place in the history of music – and, by associa-

tion, Lanner’s as well – is secured by their novel experiments in metrical
dissonance (Berlioz [1837a] 1969, p. 339). While many commentators – begin-
ning most notably with Berlioz – cite rhythm as a vital and defining feature of the
Viennese waltz, very little if anything has been said about the specific nature of
their rhythmic techniques.35
A signature feature of the Viennese waltz is the melodic hemiola. Lanner
consistently employed hemiolic melodies beginning with his Paradies-Soirée-
Walzer, Op. 52 (1830); Strauss followed Lanner’s example two years later,
beginning with Mein schönster Tag in Baden!, Op. 58. But it is Lanner who refines
the use of the hemiola within strongly lyrical, sotto voce melodic contexts, which
also often exhibit the technique of the extended anacrusis. Strauss did not make
use of lyrical hemiolic melodies and extended anacruses to the extent that
Lanner did. In this regard, Andrew Lamb is correct in observing that the style of
Johann Strauss Jr ‘showed a greater similarity to that of Lanner than to that of his
father in its concentration on melody rather than rhythmic appeal’ (2001, p. 75).
For the elder Strauss, the rhythmic material is often more important to the
musical discourse than the melodic substance. From his earliest waltzes, he
experimented with displaced two-beat melodic groupings initiated on the third
beat of the notated bar and soon after began to explore other types of displaced
two-beat melodic groupings.
Unsurprisingly, scholars have neglected Lanner’s and Strauss’s influence
within the domain of rhythm upon a generation of Romantic composers who
were coming of age during the late 1820s and early 1830s, especially Chopin,
Schumann, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Donizetti and Berlioz.36 According to
Berlioz, Strauss Sr was ‘a true artist’ who exceeded even Beethoven in the broad
scope of his influence. This is because
Beethoven’s marvels in this line are too exalted to have affected more than a small
minority of listeners. Strauss, on the other hand, deliberately appeals to a popular
audience; and by copying him, his numerous imitators are perforce helping to
spread his influence. It is not sufficiently recognised what an influence he has
already had on the musical taste of Europe as a whole by introducing cross-
rhythms into the waltz. (1969, p. 377)
Berlioz considered Strauss more influential than Beethoven because his music was
aimed at and consumed by a larger and more socially diverse class of people –

32 ERIC MCKEE
a popular audience. As Scott argues, the notion of the Viennese waltz as ‘popular
music’ was defined not only by its audience and commercial success within an
urban setting, but also by the emergence of a new musical language, one that
rubbed against the grain of serious art music. He provides a survey of stylistic
elements that characterise Strauss’s popular style, such as orchestration, harmony
and melodic style (2008, pp. 125–31). My study both refines and adds to his
discussion of the Viennese waltz, especially within the realm of texture and
rhythm. Popular elements include the following:
• the melody and accompaniment of the Viennese waltz are clearly and
consistently separated into two auditory streams;
• the role of the accompaniment is to establish a metric foundation (6/4) for
the dancers and a groove, cyclic in nature, in which certain unnotated
rhythmic aspects are part of the performance practice, such as the slight
anticipation of the second beat (Scott 2008, pp. 121 and 123);
• the sixteen-bar waltz melody – well-formed and invariably articulated with
a perfect authentic cadence – is perceived as a temporal gestalt, complete in
itself, without reference to a musical past or future;37
• the music is easily accessible and enjoyable to listen to; and
• the melody, positioned on top of the accompaniment, plays against the
accompaniment in a game of ‘rhythmic coquetting’ (Berlioz [1837a] 1969,
p. 339), and a sense of melodic independence and individuality is achieved
by the well-formedness of the melodies and by the metrical and rhythmic
conflicts between the melody and accompaniment.
Many first-hand accounts of the Viennese ballroom waltz remark on the

music’s magical ability to unleash pleasurable emotions and sensations and to
activate a mental space in which to construct and contemplate thoughts and
images – real or imaginary – drawn from the domain of the ballroom. According
to Wagner, the waltz music of Strauss is more powerful than alcohol (1983, p.
63). For Auguste-Louis-Charles, comte de La Garde-Chambonas (1902, p. 40),
the music behaves like an ‘electric current’ that sends ‘thrills of delight’ through
the crowd. For Heinrich Laube, the music ‘stirs the blood like the bite of a
tarantula’, which sends the dancers into a ‘joyful frenzy’. ‘The power wielded by
this black-haired musician’, he continues, ‘is potentially dangerous’ because of
the ‘thoughts and emotions it arouses’ ([1834–7] 1973, Vol. 4, pp. 34–9; quoted
and translated in Fantel 1971, pp. 43–4). Rhythm, as I have shown, is a potent
source of the Viennese waltz’s evocative and emotive power – the pulsating drive
of the accompaniment, the endless rhythmic variety found in the melody in
which Strauss ‘made use of every beat in the bar’ (Berlioz, quoted and trans. in
Barzun 1969, Vol. 1, p. 474) for some rhythmic effect and the dynamic tension
between the melody and accompaniment in which ‘the melody seems to delight
in teasing and tormenting the measure in a thousand ways’ (Berlioz [1837a]
1969, p. 339). I hope here to have grounded Berlioz’s keen, if passing and poetic,

observations in the particulars of the music and to have shed some light on the
revolutionary nature of Lanner and Strauss’s rhythmic practices.
NOTES
1. Evidence of Chopin’s acerbic attitude towards Lanner and Strauss may be
found in a letter to his family dated 22 December 1830 (1988, p. 129), and
in another to his former composition teacher, Józef Elsner, dated 26
January 1831 (1988, p. 137).
2. See Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1972), p. 134; Daverio (1997), p. 124; and

Wagner (1983), p. 63.
3. See, for example, Hanslick’s obituary of Strauss ([1849] 1994, pp. 124–8).
4. Yaraman (2002) first establishes how the physical movements of the waltz
are reflected in the music of Strauss, then examines how the stylistic
features of the waltz and its associated cultural associations are adapted,
transformed and combined with other elements in the instrumental waltzes
of Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Ravel, and in the operatic waltzes of
Verdi, Puccini and Berg. In Scott (2008), which chronicles the emergence
of popular music in London, New York, Paris and Vienna, the discussion
of Vienna centres, not surprisingly, on the waltz. Scott’s goal is to define
the ‘popular’ in the Viennese waltz not only in terms of its reception but
also in terms of the development of a new stylistic language distinct from
‘serious’ music. A chapter from my Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the
Waltz (2012, pp. 90–128) focuses on issues of reception, spectatorship,
aesthetics, and form in the ballroom waltzes of Lanner and Strauss.
As one would expect, there is a substantial body of research on this
subject by German and Austrian scholars. The two main thrusts of this
literature are research into the social history of the waltz and biographical
research on Lanner and the Strauss family. See Schönherr and Rienhöhl
(1954), Linke (1987, 1992 and 1996), Salmen (1988 and 1989) and Fink
(1996).
5. A partial translation of Berlioz’s article is included in Barzun (1969), Vol.

2, pp. 336–9.
6. Krebs, in his book on metrical dissonance in the music of Schumann,

draws attention to the significance of this article and other writings on
rhythm by Berlioz (1999, pp. 3–13). Krebs acknowledges Arlin’s ‘Metric
Mutation and Modulation: the Nineteenth-Century Speculations of F.-J.
Fétis’, a paper delivered at the 1994 annual meeting of the Society for
Music Theory, as bringing to his attention the writings of Berlioz (see Arlin
2000). See also Friedheim (1976) for a discussion of Berlioz and rhythm.

34 ERIC MCKEE
7. For a full account of Strauss’s tour, see Gartenberg (1974), pp. 101–15.
8. I also believe that Berlioz would have included Lanner had he been familiar
with his music. Strauss was much more aggressive than Lanner in promot-
ing his music and his performances. While Lanner rarely performed
outside of Vienna, Strauss undertook several extensive European tours.
9. Cone (1968, pp. 74–5) refers to the tendency of nineteenth-century
composers to rely on quadratic grouping organisation as the ‘tyranny of
the four-measure phrase’. Rothstein (1989, p. 184) dubs it ‘the Great
Nineteenth-Century Rhythm Problem’.
10. For Berlioz’s fifth category, Friedheim suggests two possible examples: the
Offertory from the Grande messe des morts and Juliet’s Funeral Procession
from Roméo et Juliette. Neither is entirely convincing, and Friedheim admits
that there are probably other examples which he has overlooked (1976,
p. 41).
11. In his letters and articles, Berlioz makes no mention of Strauss’s music
prior to his 1837 concert. As stated in his article, Parisians knew some of
the Viennese composer’s music through the orchestral performances of
Philip Musard and through sheet-music publications. Indeed, several
weeks before Strauss’s Paris performance, Berlioz reviewed a concert that
included a medley of Strauss waltzes ([1837c] 2001) though he makes no
mention of them in his review. As he suggests in his article, however,
Parisians, including himself, did not really know the full effect and artistry
of this music until it was performed by the composer and his orchestra.
12. The exception was the performance of the flutes, which Berlioz deemed
‘rather mediocre’. Quoted in Gartenberg (1974), p. 106.
13. Berlioz saves his sharpest attacks for French and Italian musicians, whose
prejudices against rhythmic innovations have ‘reduced both composers and
performers to a pitiable incapacity, at once for creating new rhythmic
patterns and for reproducing those that come to us from Germany’
([1837a] 1969, p. 337).
14. Several factors contributed to the Viennese waltz’s unparalleled speed.
While other spinning dances required hopping, skipping, foot stomping
and/or more intricate twirling patterns, the waltz required dancers to sweep
their feet across the floor using a smooth gliding motion, which marked it
as an indoor dance (Scott 2008, p. 118). After the turn of the century,
polished parquet floors became the standard for ballrooms of higher repu-
tation, which, together with lighter footwear (wooden and hobnailed shoes
and boots were often prohibited on wooden floors) and lighter clothing
(especially for the ladies), allowed waltzers even greater speed.
15. The same music was used for both the valse à trois temps and the valse à deux
temps.

16. London indicates tempo rates according to milliseconds rather than beats
per minute. I have converted his rates into beats per minute.
17. The standard Viennese waltz tempo for ballroom dancers today is around
60 beats per minute for the dotted minim. Even at these slower tempos, it
is easier to hear the dotted minim as the primary beat, rather than the
crotchet, since the rate of the dotted minim is closer than the crotchet to
the preferred beat rate.
18. See Rothstein (1995), pp. 172–3, on the importance of grouping and,
especially, harmonic rhythm in the establishment of metrical levels above
the notated metre. Our preference for strong beats to coincide with
changes of harmony is something that Rothstein calls the ‘rule of harmonic
rhythm’; our preference for strong beats to occur at the beginnings of
melodic groups he calls the ‘rule of congruence’.
19. For detailed studies of hemiolas in Baroque music, see Willner (1991,
1996a, 1996b and 2007). In her recent book, Mirka (2009) investigates
various metric manipulations, including hemiola, in the chamber music of
Haydn and Mozart.
20. It is important to note that earlier Viennese waltz composers such as
Michael Pamer, Hummel and Beethoven do not employ hemiolas. While
Schubert occasionally employs melodic hemiolas (see especially No. 13
from his Valses sentimentales, D. 779), they are not a standard feature of his
waltzes. For examples of non-cadential hemiola in Baroque music, see
Corrigan (1992), pp. 27–30. The best-known Classical example is the
opening of the Menuetto of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.
550.
21. As Krebs notes, a shift in metrical states is never abrupt; rather, the listener
will retain the previous metre to some degree and for some length of time
(1999, p. 45).
22. As is evident in this analysis, my notion of metrical dissonance differs
somewhat from Krebs’s approach. As has been pointed out in reviews of
his 1999 book, Krebs generally avoids defining the metrical status of
grouping displacements (see McKee 2000 and Hatten 2002). My approach
distinguishes between displacements that establish a competing metrical
pattern and those that do not.
23. I have not undertaken an extensive survey of Viennese ballroom waltzes
composed in the decades preceding 1830. However, a brief search has
revealed some evidence to support the notion that this technique was
standard practice well before 1829. A publication issued by Artaria in
1816, Choix de danses caractéristiques de diverses nations de l’Europe, contains
dance music by Moscheles, Hummel and Pamer performed in ballrooms

36 ERIC MCKEE
during the Congress of Vienna (1814–15). Most of the dances are spinning
dances notated in 3/4 metre – Deutsche, Ländler and steyrische Tänze. Three
of the spinning dances composed by Pamer contain clear examples of
two-beat melodic groupings initiated on the third beat of the notated bar.
It is commonly believed that Strauss was a member of Pamer’s orchestra
during this time, although this has not been substantiated.
24. Similarly, in her discussion of eighteenth-century definitions of imbroglio,
Mirka (2009, pp. 136–7) cites motivic parallelisms as the ‘privileged
method’ of generating changes in a work’s metrical grouping organisation
from one metre to another.
25. The title Krapfen-Walden refers to a small forest on the outskirts of Vienna.
26. Krebs observes that ‘the more closely a given dissonance approaches a state
of alignment, the more strongly dissonant it is’ (1999, p. 57). See also
Cohn (1992), p. 13.
27. Contemporary illustrators were fond of drawing attention to the perils of
ballroom dancing, including fallen dancers.
28. See Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983), pp. 88–9. See also Mirka (2009), pp.
69–92, for a discussion of Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s MPR 7 and its appli-
cability to eighteenth-century music. She argues that knowledgeable lis-
teners and composers in the eighteenth century combined two rules, one
perceptual and the other theoretical. The perceptual rule corresponds to
Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s MPR 7 (metrically stable cadence); the theoreti-
cal rule pertains to the obligatory placement of the cadential tonic chord on
a notated downbeat. Both rules are violated in the cadence of the re-barred
version of Ex. 14.
29. It is common practice today to perform the solo anacrusis under tempo,
resuming the tempo at the onset of the next bar. I have not, however, found
any evidence that indicates when this became standard performance
practice.
30. Concerning the feminine associations of the waltz, both as a dance and as
music, see McKee (2012), pp. 95–128.
31. Of course, the predetermined interpretation of the performers and their
manner of performance will also greatly affect how one hears and interprets
this melodic pattern.
32. Jackendoff’s notion of prospective hearing, which is influenced by the work
of Meyer (1973) and Narmour (1977), is another way to think about
metrical predisposition. According to Jackendoff, ‘the strong preference for
a constant meter ... projects the existing metrical structure beyond the
portion of the musical surface that has already been heard’ (1992, p. 65).

See Mirka (2009), pp. 19–20 and 23–9, for an in-depth discussion of this
idea, which leads to her related but distinct notion of ‘projection’.
33. The first chapter of Riepel’s trailblazing Anfangsgründe zur musikalischen
Setzkunst (1754) contains an interesting bit of evidence in support of the
desirability of non-congruence between dance and music. The text is
written as a Socratic dialogue between teacher and pupil. During the
discussion of asymmetrical phrases, the pupil interrupts his teacher with an
observation drawn from his own life experiences: ‘I am thoroughly familiar
with all the German dances that are played in our beer halls. If there is one
with two four-measure phrases, the people are happy but a little subdued,
but as soon as they hear one with two three-measure phrases, they all begin
to jump around as if they were crazy.’ Riepel (1754, p. 30); quoted and
translated in Russell (1992, p. 119).
34. Salmen (1988 and 1989), from the series Musikgeschichte in Bildern, con-
tains a wealth of iconographic depictions of ballroom dancing in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
35. While there are no published studies devoted solely to rhythm in the
Viennese waltz, several scholars have discussed it within other contexts. In
exploring the emergence of a popular style of composition, Scott provides
a useful discussion of the rhythmic characteristics of the Viennese waltz,
including hemiola, polymeter, syncopations and one-bar anacruses (2008,
pp. 123–25 and 128–31). In seeking to understand the correlation between
the physical motion of the waltzers and the music, Yaraman (2002), pp.
21–41, focuses on the prominence of two-bar segments, the accentual
marking of the first beat of each two-bar segment and anacruses. Rothstein
(1989), pp. 4–15, examines the role of the one-bar anacrusis in the opening
waltz of The Blue Danube Waltz. Schönherr (1975) provides a catalogue of
characteristic rhythms, including hemiola, found in Viennese waltz music.
And in his book Musik erobert die Welt, Linke (1987), pp. 91–6, devotes a
short chapter to the use of syncopation in Johann Strauss Sr’s waltz themes.
36. Only recently have scholars begun to explore the influence of Lanner and
Strauss on the music of nineteenth-century art composers; see Yaraman
(2002) and McKee (2012).
37. For a discussion of the well-formed nature of Viennese waltz melodies –
that is, melodies that are tight-knit, rhythmically vibrant, memorable and
pleasing to listen to – see McKee (2012), pp. 114–19.
REFERENCES
Arlin, Mary I., 2000: ‘Metric Mutation and Modulation: the Nineteenth-
Century Speculations of F.-J. Fétis’, Journal of Music Theory, 44/ii, pp.
261–322.

38 ERIC MCKEE
Barzun, Jacques, 1969: Berlioz and the Romantic Century, 2 vols (New York:
Columbia University Press).
Batteux, Charles, [1746] 1981: Les Beaux-arts réduits à un même principe, in Peter
le Huray and James Day (eds), Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and
Early-Nineteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp.
40–56.
Becker, Howard, 1982: Art Worlds (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press).
Berlioz, Hector, 1969: The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz, trans. and ed. David Cairns
(New York: Knopf).
______, [1837a] 1969: ‘Berlioz on the Future of Rhythm’, trans. Jacques Barzun,
in Barzun 1969, Vol. 2, pp. 336–9.
______, [1837b] 2001: ‘Strauss: Son orchestre, ses valses – de l’avenir du
rythme’, in Yves Gerard (ed.), Hector Berlioz: Critique musicale, 1823–1863
(Paris: Buchet/Chastel), Vol. 3, pp. 329–35.
______, [1837c] 2001: ‘Concerts de la rue Saint-Honoré, dirigés par M. Valen-
tino’, in Yves Gerard (ed.), Hector Berlioz: Critique musicale, 1823–1863
(Paris: Buchet/Chastel), Vol. 3, pp. 313–16.
Carner, Mosco, 1948: The Waltz (London: Max Parrish).
Cellarius, Henri, 1840: Fashionable Dancing, illustrated by Paul Gavarni
(London).
Chopin, Fryderyk, 1988: Frédéric Chopin’s Letters, collected by Henryk Opi-
enński, ed. and trans. E.L. Voynich (New York: Dover).
Cohn, Richard, 1992: ‘Metric and Hypermetric Dissonance in the Menuetto of
Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, K. 550’, Intégral, 6, pp. 1–33.
______, 2001: ‘Complex Hemiolas, Ski-Hill Graphs and Metric Spaces’, Music
Analysis, 20/iii, pp. 295–326.
Cone, Edward T., 1968: Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York:
W.W. Norton).
Corrigan, Vincent, 1992: ‘Hemiola in the Eighteenth Century’, in Seymour L.
Benstock (ed.), Johann Sebastian: a Tercentenary Celebration (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press), pp. 23–32.
Daverio, John, 1997: Robert Schumann: Herald of a ‘New Poetic Age’ (Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press).
Fink, Monika, 1996: Der Ball: Eine Kulturgeschichte des Gesellschaftstanzes im 18.
und 19. Jahrhundert (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag).
Flotzinger, Rudolf, 1998: ‘Walzer’, in Ludwig Finscher (ed.), Die Musik in
Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2nd edn, Vol. 9, pp. 1873–95 (Kassel: Bärenreiter).
Friedheim, Philip, 1976: ‘Berlioz and Rhythm’, Music Review, 37, pp. 5–44.
Gartenberg, Egon, 1974: Johann Strauss: the End of an Era (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press).
Hanslick, Eduard, [1849] 1994: ‘Johann Strauss,’ in Eduard Hanslick: Sämtliche
Schriften, historische-kritische Ausgabe, ed. Dietmar Strauss, Vol. 1, no. 2,
pp. 124–8 (Vienna: Böhlau).

Hatten, S. Robert, 2002: Review of Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces: Metrical

Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann, Music Theory Spectrum, 24/ii,
pp. 273–82.
Holoman, D. Kern, 1989: Berlioz (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press).
Jackendoff, Ray, 1992: ‘Musical Processing and Musical Affect’, in Mari Riess
Jones and Susan Holleran (eds), Cognitive Bases of Musical Communication,
pp. 51–68 (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association).
Jacob, H.E., 1939: Johann Strauss: Father and Son (New York: Crown).
Kattfuss, Johann Heinrich, 1800: Taschenbuch für Freunde und Freundinnen des
Tanzes (Leipzig: Heinrich Gräff).
Krebs, Harald, 1999: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann
(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).
Krumhansl, Carol L. and Schenck, D.L., 1997: ‘Can Dance Reflect the
Structural and Expressive Qualities of Music? a Perceptual Experiment on
Balanchine’s Choreography of Mozart’s Divertimento No. 15’, Musicae
Scientiae, 1, pp. 63–85.
La Garde-Chambonas, Auguste-Louis-Charles, comte de, 1902: Anecdotal Rec-
ollections of the Congress of Vienna, introduction and notes by comte Fleury,
trans. Albert Dresden Vandam (London: Chapman & Hall).
Lamb, Andrew, 2001: ‘Waltz’, in Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (eds), The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn, Vol. 27, pp. 72–8
(London: Macmillan).
Laube, Heinrich, [1834–37] 1973: Reisenovellen, 5 vols (Frankfurt: Athenäum).
Lerdahl, Fred and Jackendoff, Ray, 1983: A Generative Theory of Tonal Music
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Linke, Norbert, 1987: Musik erobert die Welt: Wie die Wiener Familie Strauss die
‘Unterhaltungsmusik’ revolutionierte (Vienna: Herold).
______, 1992: ‘Es mußte einem was einfallen’: Untersuchungen zur kompositorischen
Arbeitsweise der ‘Naturalisten’ (Tutzing: Hans Schneider).
______, 1996: Johann Strauss (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt).
London, Justin, 2004: Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter
(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).
Marx, Adolph Bernhard, 1837–8: Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, 2
vols (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel).
McKee, Eric, 2000: Review of Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance
in the Music of Robert Schumann, Quarterly Journal of the Music Library
Association, 57/i, pp. 97–9.
______, 2012: Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the Waltz: a Study of Dance-
Music Relations in 3/4 Time (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press).
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, 1972: Briefe aus Leipziger Archiven, ed. Hans-
Joachim Rothe and Reinhard Szeskus (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik).
Meyer, Leonard B., 1973: Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press).

40 ERIC MCKEE
Mirka, Danuta, 2009: Metric Manipulations in Haydn and Mozart: Chamber

Music for Strings, 1787–1791 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press).
Monelle, Raymond, 2000: The Sense of Music (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press).
Narmour, Eugene, 1977: Beyond Schenkerism: the Need for Alternatives in Music
Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Reeser, Eduard, 1949: The History of the Waltz (Stockholm: Continental Book).
Riepel, Joseph, 1754: Anfangsgründe zur musikalischen Setzkunst, Vol. 1: De
Rhythmopoeïa oder von der Tactordnung, 2nd edn (Regensburg: Johann
Leopold Montag).
Rothstein, William, 1989: Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York: Schirmer
Books).
______, 1995: ‘ “Beethoven with and without Kunstgepräng”: Metrical Ambigu-
ity Reconsidered’, Beethoven Forum, 4, pp. 165–94.
Russell, Tilden, 1992: ‘The Unconventional Dance Minuet: Choreographies of
the Menuet d’Exaudet’, Acta musicologica, 64, pp. 118–38.
Salmen, Walter, 1988: ‘Tanz im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in Musikgeschichte in
Bildern, Vol. 4, Part 4, pp. 1–206 (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik).
______, 1989: ‘Tanz im 19. Jahrhundert’, in Musikgeschichte in Bildern, Vol. 4,
Part 5, pp. 1–178 (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik).
Schönherr, Max, 1975: ‘Modelle der Walzerkomposition’, Österreichische
Musikzeitschrift, 30/v–vi, pp. 273–86.
Schönherr, Max and Rienhöhl, Karl, 1954: Johann Strauss Vater: ein
Werkverzeichnis (Vienna: Universal).
Scott, Derek B., 2008: Sounds of the Metropolis: the Nineteenth-Century Popular
Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris, and Vienna (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press).
Wagner, Richard, 1983: My Life, trans. Andrew Gray (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Willner, Channan, 1991: ‘The Two-Length Bar Revisited: Händel and the
Hemiola’, Göttinger Händel-Beiträge, 4, pp. 208–31.
______, 1996a: ‘Handel, the Sarabande, and Levels of Genre: a Reply to David
Schulenberg’, Music Theory Online, 2/vii.
______, 1996b: ‘More on Handel and the Hemiola: Overlapping Hemiolas’,
Music Theory Online, 2/iii.
______, 2007: ‘Metrical Displacement and Metrically Dissonant Hemiolas’,
http://www.channanwillner.com/pdf/metrical.pdf (accessed 23 March 2013).
Wilson, Thomas, 1816: A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing, the Truly
Fashionable Species of Dancing (London: Printed for the author, published by
Sherwood, Neely and Jones).
Yaraman, Sevin, 2002: Revolving Embrace: the Waltz as Sex, Steps, and Sound
(Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press).

Zbikowski, Lawrence, 2008: ‘Dance Topoi, Sonic Analogues and Musical

Grammar: Communicating with Music in the Eighteenth Century’, in
Danuta Mirka and Kofi Agawu (eds), Communication in Eighteenth-Century
Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 283–309.
NOTE ON CONTRIBUTOR
ERIC MCKEE is Associate Professor of Music at Pennsylvania State University,
where he teaches music theory, specialising in music of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. His research projects have explored Schenkerian
approaches to tonal form, musical depictions of death and spirituality in the
instrumental music of Beethoven, phrase rhythm in the music of Mozart and
topic theory.
ABSTRACT
In his 1837 article ‘Strauss: His Orchestra, His Waltzes – the Future of Rhythm’,
Berlioz advocates treating rhythm as an independent dimension just as funda-
mental to music as melody and harmony. He observes that ‘the combinations in
the realm of rhythm must certainly be as numerous as melodic ones, and the
links between them could be made as interesting as for melody. Nothing can be
more obvious than that there are rhythmic dissonances, rhythmic consonances, and
rhythmic modulations.’ The true pioneers in the field of rhythm, he continues, are
Beethoven and Weber – and Johann Strauss Sr. I continue Berlioz’s line of
thought by examining the use of two-beat melodic grouping patterns within a
notated 3/4 metre by Strauss and his near-contemporary, Joseph Lanner, to
create rhythmic dissonances, which often (but not necessarily) take the form of
melodic hemiola, metrical modulation, and extended anacrusis. My article con-
cludes with some general considerations on the expressive, formal and choreo-
graphical implications of metrical dissonance as it relates to the dancers on the
Viennese ballroom floor.

View publication stats

La Nner and Strauss

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

La Nner and Strauss

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Joseph Lanner, Johann Strauss Sr and ‘The Future of Rhythm’

Article in Music Analysis · October 2013

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

JOSEPH LANNER, JOHANN STRAUSS SR AND ‘THE FUTURE OF RHYTHM’

Wildly successful by any measure, Joseph Lanner (1801–1843) and Johann

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) 1

Berlioz and ‘The Future of Rhythm’

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

a survey of rhythmic techniques that, in the hands of a skilled composer, can

The use of irregular phrase organisations based on nonsymmetrical groupings,

1. ‘placing the accent on the weak beat instead of the strong’;

Berlioz’s summary statement that follows his list of rhythmic effects is as

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

out, Berlioz, unlike his compatriot and adversary François-Joseph Fétis,

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Berlioz draws an analogy between pitch and rhythm by suggesting that

Metre in the Viennese Waltz

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Ex. 1 Hemiolic metrical dissonance in the Viennese waltz

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Type 1: Two-Beat Groups Initiated on Beat One of the Notated Bar

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Ex. 2 Two-beat grouping patterns in the Viennese waltz

Type 2: Two-beat grouping pattern beginning on beat 3 of the notated metre

Type 3: Two-beat grouping pattern beginning on beat 2 of the notated metre

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Ex. 3 Lanner, Werber-Walzer, Op. 103, Waltz No. 1 (1836)

1. Both employ hemiola as a strong presentational element of waltz melo-

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

minim, resulting in a metric acceleration. The tempi of earlier dances in

The vibrant rhythmic profile of Viennese hemiolic melodies strengthens a

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Ex. 4 D–C progressions within an eight-bar waltz theme

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Ex. 7 Lanner, Marien-Walzer, Op. 143, Waltz No. 3 (1839)

No. 4 2=1 2 1 2 1 2 etc.

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

leading-note chord to the cadential 64 , together with the crescendo to forte,

Type 2: Two-Beat Groupings Initiated on Beat 3 of the Notated Bar

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Ex. 8 Strauss, Täuberln-Walzer, Op. 1, Waltz No. 1 (1827)

(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Ex. 9 Strauss, Krapfen-Walden-Walzer, Op. 12, Waltz No. 3 (1828)

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Ex. 10 Type 2a metrical dissonance in displaced hemiolas

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Ex. 12 Type 2b metrical dissonance in displaced hemiolas

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Type 3: Two-Beat Groupings Initiated on Beat 2 of the Notated Bar

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

Ex. 15 Type 3 metrical dissonance in displaced hemiolas

characteristically Viennese melodic design help determine the triple grouping of

Two-Beat Groupings Beginning on Beat 1 of the Second Notated Bar

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

© 2013 The Author. Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013)

The successful employment of this type of metrical relationship poses a

Music Analysis, ••/•• (2013) © 2013 The Author.

Ex. 17 Common variants of a standard Viennese rhythmic pattern involving a