Grossvatertanz

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Grossvatertanz

 

(German Grossvater, grandfather; Tanz, dance), a comic German dance accompanied by singing. The Grossvatertanz was popular in the 17th through the 19th century. It was performed at family parties, where it was a concluding dance in which everybody participated. The dance consisted of slow triple-time and fast double-time parts. The Grossvatertanz was used in Schumann’s cycles of piano pieces Papillons and Carnaval and in Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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The famous Grossvatertanz is steely and forceful, but its continuation is deliciously inflected, agogic pauses and all, with arabesques some other pianists are incapable of letting us hear.
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