Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2025
This chapter turns to the concert minuet, asking how somatic knowledge of the minuet dance informs engagement with and understanding of this genre. The chapter begins with writings that show eighteenth-century listeners discussing concert minuets in relation to the minuet dance step, as well as eighteenth-century music-theoretical discussions of minuet composition that put forward a view of the concert minuet as the nonconformist version of the dance minuet. Two case studies discuss minuets from Haydn’s ‘London’ Symphonies – Nos. 97 and 102 – which were written around the same period as the dance minuets discussed in the previous chapter, and were also performed in Vienna in the 1790s. These case studies show ways in which Haydn plays with expectations formed by the dance minuet: he subverts the structural norms of minuet composition, as well as manipulating one’s feeling of the dance step. The argument is made that, while traditional forms of analysis tend to seek subversion of expectations as a feature for explication, minuets and somatic enquiry invite us to see artfulness through a different lens.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.