About Vienna - Your City Travel Guide
About Vienna - Your City Travel Guide
About Vienna - Your City Travel Guide

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Viennese Waltz - Wiener Walzer

'Viennese Waltz' - Wiener Walzer

A visit to Vienna is incomplete without having tried the Viennese waltz. Seize the chance and put on your dancing shoes and will glide in three-four time. <

The Viennese waltz has its origins in the 18th century with the advent of a bourgeois society. The intricate patterns of aristocratic dances (i.e. decorous quadrille or minuet) were superseded by a more intimate form of dancing with a couple embracing each other and moving jointly over the dance floor. Quite a scandal in its time!

The dance itself originates from a traditional Austrian dance: the 'Ländler'. This dance was popular all over the country and infiltrated the Austrian capital and high society via inns at the outskirts. Weekend outings brought the Viennese population to those inns where social etiquette was less strict than in the capital's ballrooms. Couples started pairing off and dance to 'Ländler' tunes in typical three-quarter time. In contrast to the country side those inns did offer parquet floors and allowed for the movements to become more elegant and gliding. The dancers also sped up…

At the beginning of the 19th century the new dance conquered Vienna's ballrooms with substantial help by two great Austrian composers and lifelong friends: Josef Lanner and Johann Strauss Sr.

The Viennese waltz is much faster than the modern waltz and allows for dashing movements by changing the direction of rotation mid-dance ('Linkswalzer' and 'Rechtswalzer').