Programs · Episode

Waltz

Aired: Tuesday, December 12, 2017 @ 9:00 am
Hosted by Miles Hoffman

When the dance known as the waltz first became popular in Europe in the late 1700's and early 1800's, it was considered by many to be the ultimate in lewdness and licentiousness.

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When the dance known as the waltz first became popular in Europe in the late 1700's and early 1800's, it was considered by many to be the ultimate in lewdness and licentiousness.

One German observer in the 1790's wrote: “The… dancers went whirling about in the most indecent positions; the [men’s] supporting [hands] lay firmly on the breasts, at each movement making little lustful pressures; the girls went wild and looked as if they would drop…” A few years later the London Times proclaimed it their duty  “to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.” Well, the warnings didn’t work, and not only that, the waltz became respectable. With the music of the Viennese composer Johann Strauss, Jr., the waltz reached the pinnacle of its popularity, and in 19th-century Vienna you could find enormous dance halls packed with thousands of people dancing the waltz.

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