Capering & Kickery

Cadet Waltz

Instructions for The Cadet Valse, by L. W. Vizay, instructor in dancing to the cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, were published in conjunction with sheet music for the dance composed by Frank Mayr.  A copy is available on line at the Chrystelle Trump Bond Dance and Music Collection, Goucher College Archives, from which the beautiful cover image at left (click to enlarge) is taken.  This copy is an English printing and dated 1892, but since the dance instructions appeared in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) under the name Cadet Waltz, the dance and music must be at least a couple of years earlier than that.  The dance instructions also appeared, under the name La Valse Cadet, in George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903).  All three sets of instructions are essentially identical, allowing for some shifts in terminology.

The Cadet Valse is an excellent example of dance steps specifically matched to music.  In this case, it's rather unusual music which alternates two bars of mazurka music with four bars of waltz.  With that pattern, the sequence is essentially undanceable to any other music.  I've done an electronic version of the first twelve bars, since it's really necessary to hear the musical accenting to understand the dance.

The Rutcher Waltz

In my earlier post on the Ruchter, I mentioned the mixed-tempo version described by William De Garmo in the fifth edition of The Dance of Society (New York, 1892).  This version was called the Rutcher (not Ruchter) Waltz, and was comprised of sixteen measures of 2/4 music, and sixteen measures of 3/4 (waltz) music.  To be precise, that is eight measures, repeated, of each, as may be seen in the music from De Garmo's book at left (click to enlarge).  This dual-time format is similar to that of the Rye Waltz, which shifts from 4/4 to 3/4.  De Garmo claimed that it was an old folk dance, which I find believable from its style, but I haven't found any trace of it under either Rutcher or Ruchter.  It may well be the original version of the dance, with the Gilbert/Lopp Ruchter being a variation created for a particular piece of music.

A quick summary of the dance is that it is a "doubled" version of the Ruchter using waltz music for the second part.  To break that down in more detail:

Baby-Polka (La Badoise)

Despite the instructions for the dance being listed as the Baby Polka in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and La Polka Bébé in George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903), the first thing to know about the Baby Polka is that it is actually an older folk dance called La Badoise, for which French composer-choreographer François Paul appears to have either written new music or adapted a folk tune (as he did with Sir Roger de Coverley for his "Gigue anglaise croisée") and then credited himself with the choreography.  "Baby-Polka" thus appears to be simply the name of Paul's composition, which over the last century or so has become (or remained) strongly associated with the folk dance in France and elsewhere, though it is not the only tune attached to it.  The name Baby-Polka seems to have merged with Badoise to become the name of the dance as well.

The image at left above (click to enlarge) is from my own copy of Paul's "Baby-Polka" sheet music; it was reproduced exactly in Gilbert, as may be seen here.

The word "badoise" refers to the German region of Baden, or possibly to the spa town Baden-Baden, so it makes perfect sense that French writers attributed the dance's origin to Germany.  Eugène Giraudet, in and early edition of his Traité de la danse (c1890) simply stated "La Badoise est d'origine allemande" (The Badoise is of German origin).  G. Desrat, in his Dictionnaire de la Danse (1895), noted less definitively that it "paraît être d'origine allemande" (would appear to be of German origin), though he also noted its close analogy to a Russian children's dance, "la menace".  In the Lussan-Borel Traité de la Danse (c1900 and c1904 editions), it was given an "origine teutonne".

Lopp, in La Danse, claimed to have researched the origin of the Baby Polka, to no avail:

La polka Bébé, une des premières danses champêtres connues, nous vient de la Bohême; mais à quelle époque remonte son origine? On n'en sait rien, elle se perd dans la nuit des temps. C'est en vain que j'ai fait des recherches, nulle trace; seule une tradition que j'ai pu trouver et d'après laquelle la polka Bébé aurait été composée par une maitresse d'école qui l'aurait fait danser par ses élèves devant un haut personnage pour fêter son passage.

My loose translation:

The baby polka, one of the premier known dances of the countryside, comes to us from Bohemia; but to what era does its origin go back? We do not know, it is lost in the darkness of time. I have searched in vain, no trace; only one tradition that I was able to find, according to which the baby polka was composed by a schoolmistress who would have had it danced by her students dance for an important personage to celebrate his passage.

He settled on it being Bohemian and cited a Mademoiselle Suski, who provided Lopp with some lyrics to sing while dancing.  

I haven't tried to trace the folk dance origins of the Badoise, but its finger-wagging "scolding" element goes back at least as far as Arbeau's sixteenth-century Branle des Lavandières (Washerwomen's Branle). 

Whatever its origins, in late nineteenth century France it was primarily conceived of as a children's dance.  Desrat on the topic:

La badoise, en raison des mouvements des mains coïncidant avec ceux des pieds, ne peut être dansée que dans les matinées enfantines.

My loose translation:

The badoise, because of the coordinated movements of the hands and feet, can be danced only at children's daytime events.

Other writers' similar thoughts will be noted below.

Diary of a Journey to England, 1761-1762

On November 22, 1902, The New York Times announced the discovery, translation, and publication of the travel journal kept by Count Frederick Kielmansegge on his visit to England in 1761-1762 for the coronation of George III.  The diary was discovered and translated by his great-granddaughter-in-law Philippa, then-Countess Kielmansegg (the spelling of the family name varied over the years).  The opening paragraph of the article may be seen at left; click to enlarge.  The complete article may be found online in The New York Times Archives.

Friedrich Graf von Kielmansegge (1728-1800), a lawyer and administrative official, and his brother Karl Rudolf August von Kielmansegge (1731-1810) were part of a prominent Hanoverian family (the Holstein/Hannover Kielmansegges) and second cousins once removed of George III through their grandmother, who was the illegitimate half-sister of George I, the first Hanoverian king of England.  Their family name variously spelled as Kielmansegg, Kielmansegge, and Kielmannsegge, but since the diary was published in English using the spelling "Kielmansegge", I'll keep to that version here.

The coronation was the brothers' excuse to travel, but Kielmansegge was an enthusiastic tourist and roamed all over England taking in the sights, which he described at great length.  He also socialized extensively and attended balls given by royalty and nobility in London as well as in other towns he visited.  The diary is a fascinating document in general, well worth reading, but the major attraction for the dance historian is that it contains useful information about the practice of dance in England in the mid-eighteenth century.  I have not read the original, which does not seem to be available to the public; I am dependent upon the English translation.  But I see no reason for the Countess to have edited or bowdlerized the dance information and therefore regard it as reasonably reliable.

The Bronco

Compared to other dances found in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903), the Bronco is a bit of a puzzle.  The tune "Le Bronco" was a schottische with an interestingly irregular accent which the dance matched precisely.  Both music and dance were composed by J. F. Davis, as may be seen on the cover at left, from the 1888 sheet music, which has been made available online by Richard Powers, here (PDF).  According to Powers' bibliography, there was also an earlier edition published in 1885.  

These publications obviously predate Gilbert (1890) and Lopp (1903).  But Gilbert and Lopp, who were usually quite good about crediting the creators of dances, did not attribute the Bronco to Davis.  They also gave a shorter sequence, only the first part of Davis's two-part dance, and listed it as for 6/8 (jig) or 2/4 (galop) music rather than schottische.  Why?  We don't know. 

The simplest explanation is that the shorter jig-time version was transmitted more widely and Gilbert either was unaware of the Davis version or, for some reason -- personal conflict, political difficulties between dance organizations, whatever -- just didn't want to give Davis the credit.  Lopp rarely offered a credit that Gilbert did not.  Or Gilbert might have created the shorter version himself, though in that case Lopp might likely have credited him. 

Another possibility is that there was an existing dance called the Bronco and that Davis incorporated it into a longer sequence and composed music to match.  I consider this less likely.

For now, the exact process by which we ended up with two variant Bronco sequences will have to remain a mystery.

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Hornpipe Polka

Taking yet another meander through M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), here's an extremely simple polka variation from Constantine Carpenter and Charles Martel, the same Philadelphia-based pair responsible for The Latest York.  The Hornpipe Polka itself is trivial, but it was composed to a very popular piece of music to which it is extremely well-matched and of which numerous early recordings survive.  Edited 12/31/21: Interestingly, it does not seem to have impressed G. W. Lopp, who did not include it in his La Danse (Paris, 1903), which incorporated translations of almost everything in Gilbert.   G. W. Lopp leaned on the historical connection between sailors and hornpipes by listing it in La Danse (Paris, 1903) as Le Matelot Polka (Horn Pipe Polka), credited to C. Carpentier (sic), which I unaccountably missed when I first wrote this post.  "Matelot" is French for sailor.  Other than the name, Lopp's description is identical to Gilbert's.

The variation itself is quite short.  The starting position is "military" position, opened up side by side (the gentleman's right hand on the lady's waist and her left hand resting on his shoulder or upper arm) as discussed and pictured here.  "First foot" below refers to the normal starting foot -- the gentleman's left and the lady's right; second is the opposite.

Hornpipe Polka (four measures of 2/4 time)
2b   Polka forward twice, starting on first foot, then second.
(take closed hold)
1b   Galop, starting with first foot, making a half turn
1b   Polka, starting with second foot, completing the full turn
(open up side by side and restart from the beginning)

July 2019 Gig Calendar

I am still mostly on my summer reading/research/writing break, but I plan to emerge briefly for my second lecture to the Beau Monde (Regency-focused) subgroup of the Romance Writers of America at their conference in New York in July.  Other events may emerge, but I'm not really seeking them.  Lots of work to do!

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Tuesday, July 23rd ~ New York City
Beau Monde Annual Conference and Soirée
3:15-4:15pm, lecture; 7:30-11:00pm, soirée.  Regency romance writers' conference.  I will be delivering a lecture on Regency-era dance and ballroom etiquette and leading the dancing at the evening soirée.  This event is open to registered members of the conference only, with a limit of one hundred attendees.  Pre-registration cutoff is July 13th.  See the conference webpage for details.

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I am available for private lessons in Connecticut, or while on my various travels; during the latter, you must provide the dance space.  Email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.

New Haven, CT: July 1-22, 25-31
New York City: July 23-24

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