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Ongherese , Fandango, and Polonaise: National Dance as Classical-Era Topic

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01411896.2012.680879

1547-7304

Jonathan Bellman,

Romani and Gypsy Studies

Abstract National dances—or "character" dances—have remained on the periphery of studies of the eighteenth-century musical vocabulary of topics and styles, much as the countries from which they hailed were viewed as tangential to the European mainstream. Yet, dances such as the ongherese, fandango, and polonaise carried affective content beyond their nationality. The stereotypes associated with these three countries—Hungary, Spain, and Poland, respectively—illuminate what composers sought to project in their uses of such dances. The ongherese had a dual cultural significance, evoking both Hungarian national pride and the fierce independence of the Gypsies who usually played it—eventually developing into what became the nineteenth-century style hongrois. The use of the fandango went beyond local color to imply the more negative elements of an older Spanish stereotype—including arrogance, haughtiness, and the unbridled exercise of power—both directly and as mocking irony. In contrast, the polonaise—as a noble presentation-step for couples—could be played "straight" in instrumental music, but gained a comedic significance when used by opera composers to mock the idea of dignity à deux, whether in a context of flirtation or quarreling. Thus, the uses of these dances meant more than their national associations, and their broader meanings need to be incorporated into the growing topical lexicon. Notes 1Leonard G. Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (New York: Schirmer Books, 1980), 18. 2Other spellings included ungaresi, ongaresi, ongaresca, ingheresi, and so on; German and French designations are also frequently seen. 3It should be noted that the third movement of Haydn's Keyboard Concerto in D Major (1784), Hob. XVIII: 11 is called "Rondo all' Ungarese." 4Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst [1784–85, first published 1806], ed. Fritz Kaiser and Margrit Kaiser (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1969), 352. "Der ungerische Tanz hat einige originelle Wendungen, und die Heidemachen haben sogar Originalmelodien, dies sich den Tänzen der Zigeuner ziemlich nähern. Der Text ist immer zweyviertel, die Bewegung mehr langsam als schnell, und in der Ausweichung ganz bizarr; z. B. sie beginnen vier Tacte in G, und hören so dann in C auf; und so haben sie noch manche barocke Wendungen. Dieser Tanz verdient sehr auf das Theater gebracht zu werden" (my translation). 5This is according to Bruce Alan Brown's article and worklist in Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online), http://0-www.oxfordmusiconline.com.source.unco.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/26570, accessed 22 September 2011. Les hussards (Franz Hilverding was the choreographer) was performed at the palace in Laxenburg, L'Hongrois (also Hilverding) at the Burgtheater, and Les bohémiens (choreographed by P. Sodi) at the the Kärntnertortheater. 6Gluck's opera has a Turkish subject, but Hungarian elements first appear as inflections in the "Turkish" style. See Jonathan Bellman, The Style Hongrois in the Music of Western Europe (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993), chapter 3. More discussion of the kuruc-4th can be found on pp. 121–23 of the same work. 7A large bibliography of the first half-century of such publications is to be found in Géza Papp's three-part article, "Die Quellen de 'Verbunkos-Musik': Ein Bibliographischer Versuch," Studia Musicologica 21 (1979), 151–217; Studia Musicologica 24 (1982), 35–97; and Studia Musicologica 26 (1984), 59–132. 8Just how influential such publications were can be seen from a comparison between the compositions and their sources, which are helpfully collected and presented in Johannes Brahms, Hungarian Dances for Piano Duet: Sources and Original Version, eds. Gabor Kovats and Katalin Szerzo (Budapest: Editio Musica Budapest, 1990). Liszt took at least some of the source material for his Hungarian cycles (the Ungarischer Nationalmelodien and the Hungarian Rhapsodies) from such publications as well. 9Alexander F. Károlyi, Hungarian Pageant: Life, Customs, and Art of the Hungarian Peasantry (Budapest: George Vajna and Co., 1939), 27. 10Károlyi, Hungarian Pageant, 30. 11Ernst Moritz Arndt, Reisen durch einen Theil Teutschlands, Ungarns, Italiens und Frankreichs in den Jahren 1798 und 1799 (Leipzig: Heinrich Graff, 1804), 297–98. "Es war nemlich Bauerball, wozu ein halb Dutzend Zigeuner eine gellende Musik anstimmten, indem einige von ihnen zu Zeiten auch einen ihrer Tänze zum Besten gaben. Der ungrische Bauerntanz hat durchaus etwas ausgezeichnet Nationales, man mögte sagen etwas Orientalisches. In langsamen Schritten schreiten di Paare auf den Zehenspitzen vorwärts, indem die Weiber die Bewegung mit doppelter Schnelligkeit in mehrern kurz umgedreheten Wirbeln machen. Bey dem gemeinschaftlichen Halt folgen mehrere Sprünge hinter einander hoch in die Luft, und bey den entrechats dieser sowohl, als bey dem langsamen Schreiten werden von den Männern die Sporen klirrend zusammengeschlagen, und die Weiber mit ihren langen fliegenden Locken schlagen auf die klingenden Bleche ihrer Brüste. Man muß diesen Tanz sehen, um davon entzückt zu werben. Der tiefste Ernst der Mienen, und die festeste Haltung der Leiber, die Gewandheit in den schweren Stiefeln und Sporen—den dies ist der Tanzornat, und ohne Sporen tanzt nicht leicht ein Unger—der bewundernswürdige Takt und die Einheit des Sporenklirrens, alles für ein ganz neuer Reitz, die nur an die seichten Äfferenen und Tändelenen unsrer Narrensprünge geewöhnt sind. Ganz anders war der Karakter des Zigeunertanzes, den einige der Spieler mit ihren Weibsen durchführten, ein wahrer Wildentanz in schnellsten Takt mit fortlaufenden Wirbeln der Paare, und mit schnellen Verschlingungen und Entkettungen und den ungeheuersten Sprüngen und Leibesverschrenkungen; auch hierin war des gelben Völkchens Karakter wunderbar ausgedrückt. So verloren wir unter diesen lustigen ein fröhliches Stündchen." I am grateful to Deborah Kauffman for substantial help with the translation. 12Quoted in Bálint Sárosi, Gypsy Music [1970], trans. Fred Macnichol (Budapest: Corvina Press, 1978), 89. 13Edward Brown(e), A Brief Account of Some Travels Through Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carthinia, Carniola, and Friuli (London: Benjamin Tooke, 1673), 18–19. 14Robert Walsh, Narrative of a Journey from Constantinople to England (London: Frederick Westley and A. H. Davis, 1828), 357, 328. 15The frequent use of this rhythm may be seen in the repertoire catalogued in the three-part Studia Musicologica article by Géza Papp, "Die Quellen de 'Verbunkos-Musik,' " cited in note 7. 16Kofi Agawu, Playing with Signs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 42. 17William Drabkin, A Reader's Guide to Haydn's Early String Quartets (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 137–39; Hans Keller, The Great Haydn Quartets (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1986), 55–57. In an endnote on p. 176 of his book, Drabkin entirely justifiably chided me for an overly simplistic reading of this movement in my 1993 book The Style Hongrois in the Music of Western Europe; I believe I can now genially return the favor by tossing out the gavotte—a red herring in this movement—entirely. 18Will Durant and Ariel Durant, The Age of Reason Begins (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 285. 19He is also given a Boléro in No. 12, at the beginning of Act II, where he expresses his confusion, and a Seguidilla for No. 14, which is used for an old song he is trying to recall. 20Wye Jamison Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 153, 154. 21Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture, 278. 22Ratner, Classic Music, 12–13. 23Heinrich Christoph Koch, Introductory Essay on Composition: The Mechanical Rules of Melody, Parts 3 and 4, trans. Nancy Kovaleff Baker (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, c1983), 79; and Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt am Main: August Hermann dem Jüngern, 1802), col. 60, as quoted in Ratner, Classic Music, 12–13. 24An excellent treatment of the eighteenth-century polonaise is to be found in Sarah Bennett Reichart, The Influence of Eighteenth-Century Social Dance on the Viennese Classical Style (Ph.D. Diss., City University of New York, 1984), 107–32, to which this discussion is indebted. 25Koch, Musikalisches Lexikon, col. 1158. Reichart (p. 127), suggests that the Adagio opening of the young Mozart's String Quartet in G Major, K. 80, has noticeable polonaise elements, and I agree, noting many of the same in that piece's younger relative, the Andante middle movement of the Piano Concerto in G Major, K. 453. Both movements seem to mix polonaise rhythms with those of the even older sarabande, and as the "Adagio" indication in the earlier work is in Leopold's hand, it is not clear that the tempo/mood indication does not reflect an earlier, less extreme conception of adagio, "at ease." 26Maja Trochimczyk, "Polish Dances: Polonaise," http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/dance/index.html (2000), accessed 4 November 2011. 27Charles Pauli, Elemens de la danse (Leipzig: U. C. Saalbach, 1756), 64; as quoted and translated by Reichart, The Influence of Eighteenth-Century Social Dance, 111–12. 28Jacques Casanova de Seingalt [Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt], Histoire de ma vie, édition éntegrale, 12 vols. (Wiesbaden: F. A. Bruckhaus, 1826–38; Paris: Plon, 1960), X, 86; as quoted and translated by Reichart, The Influence of Eighteenth-Century Social Dance, 111–12. 29Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 4, trans. Ian Johnston, http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/lucretius/lucretiusbookfourweb.htm (2010), accessed 11 January 2012, lines 1657ff. 30Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture, 244. 31Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture, 141. 32More erudition from Da Ponte, as he refers to Vulcan, the deformed Ur-cuckold of Roman mythology, the husband of Venus herself. 33Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture, 179. 34Carl Maria von Weber's 1821 opera Der Freischütz maintains precisely this topical irony in Ännchen's second-act aria, "Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen." The character is trying to cheer up her friend Agathe, who is sad and preoccupied, fearing for her beloved Max. In this number, Ännchen affects a lighthearted posture, talking about how she will flirt with this boy or that, "blond hair or brown," with no shame of self-consciousness. The musical topic is unquestionably a polonaise. 35Letter to his father of May 7, 1783, quoted in Tim Carter, W. A. Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 6. 36While "topics" or topoi were not used in this sense, the cognate morphological impulse in eighteenth-century thought is apparent in the descriptive lists of dances and styles in treatises and encyclopedias. 37Long known as the "Jeunehomme" Concerto, the matter has been cleared up by Michael Lorenz. See his note on the subject, in "The Jenamy Concerto," Newsletter of the American Mozart Society 9/1 (2005), 1–3; http://members.aon.at/michaelorenz/jenamy/, accessed 6 November 2011. 38Eighteenth-century Spain, after all, served as a conveniently exotic, but not too exotic setting for Beaumarchais' three Figaro plays, which are about familiar types with nothing particularly Spanish about them. 39Concise accounts of the "Turkish" style may be found in Jonathan Bellman, The Style Hongrois in the Music of Western Europe (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993), chapter 2; and Mary Hunter, "The alla turca Style in the Late Eighteenth Century: Race and Gender in the Symphony and the Seraglio," in The Exotic in Western Music, ed. Jonathan Bellman (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998), 43–73. A more substantial treatment is Nasser Al-Taee, Representations of the Orient in Western Music: Violence and Sensuality (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010).