XII
PROPER DANCE MUSIC
Music is really more expressive of the era in which it appears than books or pictures or any of the arts. To every nation belongs its music, and every nation expresses in its music national characteristics and national dreams.
Of course, the operas and the great concertos and symphonies are like the gods—of no age, but of every age; they are harmonies of life itself, and therefore are always beloved and considered beautiful; but dance music is the expression of the moment. It spells for us in its subtle rhythms the joys and the fashions of the season, when it attains the zenith of its popularity. Looking back across the years, one cannot fail to be struck by the changes which new dances have brought out in the music of every nation. Back in the days of powdered hair and gallantry were the stately Minuet and the Gavotte, to be superseded in later generations by the Waltz, the dance once considered so shocking and so beautiful.
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