(Fr.).
One of the most popular ballroom dances of the 19th century, with an elaborate set of steps and danced by sets of four, six or eight couples. The name, derived from the Italian ‘squadriglia’ or Spanish ‘cuadrilla’, was originally applied to a small company of cavalry, subsequently to a group of dancers in a pageant and then to a troupe of dancers in the elaborate French ballets of the 18th century. The popularity of contredanses in ballets led in turn to the description of a set of contredanses in the ballroom as a ‘quadrille de contredanses’, later shortened to ‘quadrille’. The dance was very popular in Paris during the First Empire and was introduced to London at Almack's Assembly Rooms in 1815 and to Berlin in 1821. Though known in Vienna around the same time, it did not become the rage there until the carnival of 1840.
The quadrille usually consisted of five distinct parts or figures, which, even when new music was provided, retained the names of the contredanses that originally made up the standard quadrille: Le pantalon (adapted from a song which began ‘Le pantalon/De Madelon/N'a pas de fond’), L'été (a contredanse popular in 1800), La poule (1802), La pastourelle (based on a ballad by the cornet player Collinet) and a lively ‘Finale’. La pastourelle was often replaced by a further figure, La Trénis (named after the dancer Trenitz), but in the Viennese quadrille both were danced, as fourth and fifth figures respectively in a total of six.
The music of the quadrille was made up of lively, rhythmic themes of rigid eight- or sixteen-bar lengths, the sections being much repeated within a figure. Except for La poule and sometimes Le pantalon or the Finale (in 6/8) the music was in 2/4, and was usually adapted from popular songs or stage works. Among prominent French arrangers were Philippe Musard (1792–1859), Isaac Strauss (1806–88) and Olivier Métra (1830–89). In England the quadrilles of Jullien, such as the British Army Quadrilles and the Grand Quadrille of All Nations were prominent attractions at his concerts at the Surrey Gardens and Covent Garden. Elsewhere in Europe quadrilles were produced by the Strausses and all other major dance composers of the 19th century.
Hans von Bülow composed a quadrille on themes from Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, and during his years as conductor at the Powick Asylum (1879–84) Elgar wrote quadrilles which he raided for later works, notably the second Wand of Youth suite. The plundering of all sorts of musical sources for themes for new dances and the musical distortions that often had to be made to satisfy the restricted musical form of the quadrille made it a target and vehicle for musical jokes through the arrangement of themes from particularly incongruous sources, as in the Macbeth Quadrilles from music attributed to Matthew Locke, the Bologna Quadrilles on themes from Rossini's Stabat mater, Chabrier's Souvenirs de Munich (on themes from Tristan und Isolde), and Souvenirs de Bayreuth (on themes from The Ring) by Fauré and Messager.
See also Lancers.
T. Wilson: A Companion to the Ball Room (London, 1816)
T. Wilson: The Quadrille and Cotillion Panorama (London, 1819)
M. Schönherr and K. Reinöhl: Johann Strauss Vater (Vienna, 1954)
P.J.S. Richardson: The Social Dances of the Nineteenth Century in England (London, 1960)
For further bibliography see Dance.
ANDREW LAMB