Dances, and Dance Forms in Music

As some of you might remember, I have a regular radio program on WXPI radio, and I have completed 4 shows thus far: Two one hour shows, on Trios, and on National Anthems, and national and folk music.  Then I was asked to expand to 2 hours.

The next two shows were on Songs and Arias, and on Dances.

The show on Dance, and Dance Forms and Dance Rhythms (I hadn't thought out the title in that detail, but that was about what the program was), made me think of this topic, and it is interesting.

The show started out with a Waltz (Voices of Spring), and then a few minuets, from Beethoven, Mozart, and (later in the show) from Haydn.

Then we got into the Baroque dances: Allemande (Bach, from the French Suite no. 2), Courant (Bach, Orchestral Suite no. 1), Sarabande (Orchestral Suite no. 2), and Gigue (from French Suite no. 5).  We played a couple of Gavottes, one of which was a song by British composer Herbert Howells, entitled Gavotte.

Bolero has to be figured in, as well as a couple of Hornpipes from Handel.

Then we went into Latin dances in earnest, and played a Tango, Rumba (Light my fire), Samba, Cha-cha (why not Cha-cha-cha?  I wonder about what happened to the third Cha; anyway, it was Autumn Leaves, of all things), Bossa Nova (Desafinado).

It turned out that Hernando's Hideaway, a Tango, had connections with the town in which I live, and another song featured in the same Broadway Musical, I'm not at all in love, happened to be in Waltz rhythm.

I was just fooling around with the Do-Re-Mi song, and realized --too late for the radio show-- that it was clearly a Polka.  The Laendler from the Sound of Music was also played, observing that it was an ancestor to the Waltz.

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