Issues of Time Periods: Dates and Nomenclature

People often refer to Georgian Dance, Baroque Dance, Regency Dance, or Jane Austen Dancing.

The Georgian period covers some 116 years from 1714 to 1830. Some writers also talk of the long eighteenth century as anything from 1660 to 1830. The Baroque period is more difficult to pin down as it refers to a style rather than a period. Still, authorities seem to agree that, in terms of music, certainly in England, it refers to a period from about 1600 to 1750. The Regency, i.e. when Prince George was actually Regent, ran from 1812 to 1820; however, people frequently apply the term from much earlier than this, as the Prince of Wales' influence on fashion and style began to grow from about the time of the Regency Crisis of 1788. Some run the period up to the Prince's death as George IV in 1830.

References to Jane Austen dancing are even more confusing, as far as we know, Jane Austen attended her first ball in Basingstoke Town Hall in 1792 at the age of 16; she seems to have attended her first Bath Assembly in 1797, and many of her novels also seem to be set in the 1790s. However, most of the films of Austen novels seem to be set much later, usually around the date of publication, i.e. 1811 - 1817, but often use dances and dance music from much earlier, such as Mister Beveridge's Maggot, which has its origins in Playford's publications of the late 17th Century.

This blog tries to avoid much of this by referring to the dancing of particular decades within the long eighteenth century.

Two figures from the 1820s

Lead Down the Middle and through the Top Couple

The Lady and Gentleman at A B join hands and lead down two couples up again, lead through the top
couple, and take the situation of the Lady and Gentleman at C D. who move up to A B; this is performed with the side Step down the middle and up, and through the top to places, with three Chasse, Jette. and Assemble, eight bars.

Promenade

The Lady and Gentleman at A B cross hands before, that is, the Gentleman takes the right and left hands of the Lady with his right and left hands, (the right. hand must he placed uppermost;) the second and third couple do the same; then the whole three couples pass round in the line D to their places at C E F, the top couple at C taking the lead. This is performed with seven Chasses one Jette and Assemble, and requires eight bars.

N. B. The old method of promenading was by the Lady and Gentleman crossing their hands behind their backs, which. if not well performed, produces an inelegant effect, and is much more

laborious, and less graceful, than the above method, which the author introduced some years ago and is now generally followed.

From Thomas Wilson's "The Complete System of English Country Dancing"

Early depictions of the Quadrille

Dancing the quadrille. Detail from a series of illustrations from about 1821 attributed to William Hawkes Smith of Birmingham satirising the craze for the quadrille in the late Georgian period.

The quadrille was introduced in France around 1760: originally it was a form of cotillion in which only two couples were used, but two more couples were eventually added to form the sides of a square. The "quadrille des contredanses" was now a lively dance with four couples, arranged in the shape of a square, each couple facing the center. One pair was called the "head" couple, the adjacent pairs the "side" couples. A dance figure was often performed first by the head couple and then repeated by the side couples.

Reaching English high society around in the early part of the nineteenth century the quadrille became a craze. As it became ever more popular it evolved into forms that used elements of the waltz, including The Caledonians and The Lancers. 

Writing in 1815 the London Dancing Master Thomas Wilson says: "Quadrilles are of that Species of Dancing that at present claim a high precedence in Fashionable Circles ' and from their partaking greatly bf the style of Cotillions in their Composition may notwithstanding their more fashionable appellation and their more short and less complex Figures be properly considered as petit (sic) or short Cotillions."
By the time of these illustrations although there was an enormous amount of quadrille music the form of the dance had settled down as consisting five parts named:

1. Le Pantalon ("Trousers")
2. L’été ("Summer")
3. La Poule (The Hen")
4. La Pastourelle ("The Shepherd Girl")
5. Finale

Sometimes La Pastourelle was replaced by another figure; La Trénis or occasionally  this was added as a 6th part.
For the most part, the figures and steps of each of the parts remained the same whatever music was being used. However, some publishers, notably the Whites of Bath used dancing teachers to create new choreography which they offered as an alternative to the standard set.

Of the Step called Assemblé

"THIS step is occasionally performed in all the positions, but at present I shall only describe it as performed in the fifth position.

Place your feet in the fifth position, the body erect, (as already directed for the deportment), and the knee:; well turned outward; rest the body entirely on the leg that is before, taking care to balance yourself well on the haunch; this will disengage the leg that is behind; bend on the leg that is before, and at the same time raise the foot that is behind to the point, keeping the knee well turned outward; extend the knee of the leg that is behind, by sliding the foot on the point just to the second position, where it should arrive, the knee and instep extended, at the same moment you cease to bend on the other leg; then raise yourself on the point of the foot you stand upon, and at same time slide the foot from the second position, into the fifth position before, when both knees should be alike extended; gradually place the heels, keeping them well forward, that you may form the fifth position more easily; finish the step with both, knees straight. This step should be performed with both feet alternately.

To perform the Assemblé in the fifth position behind, observe the same -rule, disengaging the foot that is before, and entering it behind.

This step, as an exercise, gives steadiness, and the habit of bending and extending the knees and insteps."

THE ART OF DANCING; WITH
A DESCRIPTION OF THE
PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN The Quadrille
Alexander Strathy 1822

Strathy was an Edinburgh dancing master who announced in an advert in the Caledonian Mercury of 24th September that he had just returned from Paris where he had acquired an additional variety steps tastefully arranged for the Quadrille.

The School Curriculum

As in these examples, most Georgian schools included dance in their programme of learning

From nearly fifty years earlier, in 1772

The dancing master referred to in the last advert was Francis Fleming. In 1746, he was a prominent local musician who had married Ann Roland, who had had a successful career as a dancer on the London stage.

From the time of her marriage to Fleming, Ann Roland had been developing a career as a dance teacher at some of the many private schools in the area. It appears that her husband supported her in this, probably by providing music. Together, they initiated annual benefit concerts and balls at the assembly rooms.

After his wife's death, Fleming continued to provide dancing tuition, periodically organising balls at Wiltshire's rooms to give his young scholars a chance to show off their paces before their admiring parents and friends. His daughters Anna and Kitty supported him in this.

Dance in the 1820's

Thomas Wilson, a leading dancing master of the late Georgian period describes country dancing in his book The Complete System of Country Dancing published in 1820, the year George IV came to the throne, in the following terms:

“A COUNTRY DANCE, As it is named, is almost universally known as the national Dance of the English and as correctly known, is constructed on mathematical and other scientific principles, clearly displayed in its operative effect, when properly and, well performed.

It is formed of two principal features, viz. Figures and Steps, which for, the execution, government, and. display of their several movements and evolutions, are united with their indispensable auxiliary, music: but, independent of the, scientific structure of the Dance, there are secondary features, named Ornaments and Embellishments, and which are necessary to the performance of the Figures and• Steps to the music, as they apply and are connected with each• other in a graceful and easy manner.

The Figures, which form various evolutionary movements in circular, serpentine, angular, and straight lines. are formed into a variety of different lengths and require a variety of different steps or movements of the feet in their performance to music appropriately adapted thereto.”

Corri and Dussek

Jan Ladislav Dussek (February 12, 1760 – March 20, 1812) was a Czech composer and pianist. He was an important representative of Czech music abroad in the second half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.

Dussek was one of the first piano virtuosi to travel widely throughout Europe. He performed at courts and concert venues from London to Saint Petersburg to Milan and was celebrated for his technical prowess. During a nearly ten-year stay in London, he was instrumental in extending the size of the pianoforte and was the recipient of one of John Broadwood's first 6-foot pianos. Harold Schonberg wrote that he was the first pianist to sit at the piano with his profile to the audience, earning him the appellation "le beau visage." All subsequent pianists have sat on stage in this manner. He was one of the best-regarded pianists in Europe before Beethoven's rise to prominence.

In the spring of 1791, Dussek appeared in a series of concerts, a number of which featured Sophia, the young daughter of music publisher Domenico Corri. In a concert on June 15 that year, the pair played a piano duet together; they were married in September 1792. Sophia Corri was a singer, pianist, and harpist who became famous in own right. They had a daughter, Olivia, but the marriage was not happy, involving a series of affairs by both parties.

Some of the concerts in 1791 and 1792 featured both Dussek and Joseph Haydn;

Also, in 1792 Dussek embarked on a music publishing venture with Sophia's father Domenico. It is this collaboration which holds most interest for students of the dances of this period as a considerable amount of the firm's output was dance music and guidance on dance figures under such titles as "For the year 1797 twenty-four new country dances with their proper figures for the harp, piano forte and violin as performed at the Prince of Wales’s and other grand balls and assemblies humbly dedicated to the nobility and gentry subscribers to Willis’s rooms, Festino etc"

From adverts in the Bath papers, we learn that Dussek and his wife came to Bath to perform in 1793 and were resident for a time at number 52 New King Street.

The Corri Dussek company while successful at first fared poorly in later years, and the circumstances of its failure spurred Dussek to leave London in 1799 to go to Germany and leaving Corri in debtors' prison.