Waltz Quadrille: A Song History

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The waltz quadrille was a ballroom dance with a good following in North America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and in many places it closed the evening as the good-night number.[1] A complete performance repeated the figure sixteen times, four for each couple.[1] The name belongs to a small family of related tunes rather than a single melody: the Traditional Tune Archive keeps separate entries for versions from a Nebraska fiddler, from a Canadian printed collection and from a Wisconsin fiddler, observing that their opening strains are alike.[1][2][3] The Archive also holds a Quebec valse-quadrille, which it describes as a composite dance in four parts, in a version from Montreal accordionist Arthur Pigeon.[4]

Painting of a crowded ballroom with costumed guests, a dancing couple and a central fountain

Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, Masquerade Ball, oil on canvas, 1909. A masquerade ball painted in 1909, shown for the ballroom dancing of the years when the waltz quadrille had its following; the painting has no connection to the tune.

Collector R.P. Christeson printed one version, learned from Zeke Holdren of Lincoln, Nebraska, in his Old Time Fiddler's Repertory (1973).[1] Another appears in Jarman's The Cornhuskers Book of Square Dance Tunes (1944) with a credit to Canadian fiddler John Burt, though the Archive suggests the credit may cover only the arrangement.[2] A third, from Gustav Erdmann, a Wisconsin fiddler born around 1882, was published with a sung verse in Reiner and Anick's Old Time Fiddling Across America (1989).[3] Paul Gifford, cited by the Archive, knew the dance as a singing call in the 1920s and thought it might be among the earliest of that kind.[1] The Ontario band George Wade and his Cornhuskers put a Waltz Quadrille on a Victor 78.[1] Led by caller George Wade, the Toronto-based group played dances in Ontario and Quebec from the mid-1920s, began broadcasting on Toronto radio in 1928, and made its Victor records in 1933.[5]

Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione, members of a band known as The Doofus, include a Waltz Quadrille among the eighteen pieces in The Doofus - Occasional Number 4 - 18 Favorite Waltzes For Autoharp, a downloadable book of autoharp sheet-music arrangements.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Waltz Quadrille"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Waltz Quadrille (1)".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Waltz Quadrille (2)".
  3. Traditional Tune Archive: "Waltz Quadrille (3)".
  4. Traditional Tune Archive: "Valse-Quadrille (première partie)".
  5. The Canadian Encyclopedia: "George Wade and His Cornhuskers".
  6. Neal Walters: "Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione, The Doofus - Occasional Number 4 - 18 Favorite Waltzes For Autoharp".
  7. Image: Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, Masquerade Ball, oil on canvas, 1909. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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