Tilden A. Russell, Ph.D. 1983

Advisor: James Haar

Dissertation Title: Minuet, Scherzando, and Scherzo: The Dance Movement in Transition, 1781-1825

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Dissertation Abstract:

The dance movement in instrumental music changed radically around the turn of the nineteenth century. The period of greatest change may reasonably be demarcated by the completion in 1781 of Haydn’s quartets, Op.33 (the dance movements of which are named either scherzo or scherzando) and the composition in 1825 of Mendelssohn’s Octet, Op.20 (the scherzo of which is completely independent of minuet conventions). During this period, the dance movement was treated in a variety of traditional and innovative manners in the chamber and symphonic works of minor and major European composers.

Study of the dance movement in the broadest possible context disproves two commonly-held notions. First, the scherzo had a long history before 1781 and did not in fact metamorphose from the fast minuet. Second, the minuet was not a stable paragon of convention in the eighteenth century; rather there were fundamental differences between the dance and the art minuets, and the art minuet itself was responsive to many external stylistic and formal influences. After 1781, movements designated minuet, scherzando, and scherzo–plus unnamed movements–partake in common from a pool of richly diverse style traits. As a result, it is impossible to establish firm definitions for the three terms.

German musical aesthetics during this transitional period most strongly reflect eighteenth-century English influence. With regard to the dance movement, the comic in music is the most important German concept to emerge from English aesthetics. Developments in the dance movement parallel attitudes on the comic as traced in journal articles and reviews. This body of contemporary opinion suggests that the dance movement in transition is a paradigm of the displacement of Classical values by Romantic ones. In a larger sense, the dance movement is a key to the sources of musical Romanticism.

Dr. Russell, currently Professor Emeritus of Music at Southern Connecticut State University, is an influential scholar of historic dance, having published several books and many articles. His most recent book, published in 2020 with Oxford University Press, is entitled Dance Theory: Source Readings from Two Millennia of Western Dance.