Waltzing across the ‘Great Divide’:Exploring Continuities of Art Music and Popular Musics through Convention-orientated Analysis

Recent developments in music theory point to broad continuities of idiom across art-music and popular genres in modern western music history. Eighteenth-century conventions proved remarkably resilient, given the otherwise profound changes in western musical culture over the last 250 years. The Viennese waltz was a key link in this evolutionary process, as it adapted eighteenth-century conventions to new formats that remained in place for generations. In the waltzes of Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss Snr a new ‘accent’ emerged clearly, based around well-consolidated divergences from Classical models. A survey of later genres gives a preliminary ‘mapping’ of the legacy of the Viennese waltz in art music and popular musics. Case studies from the ‘long’ nineteenth century examine the new Classical accent in the music of Glinka, Chabrier, Mahler and Joplin.