Hammer
The hammer is a Danse originating in Bohemia (current Czech Republic), at two times, of rather fast tempo, at the well articulated rates/rhythms.
A little history
If its name (or deformation of its name) can make think of a Polish reference , the word hammer in fact comes from the Czech půlka (half or half) , describing the driven out step (half-not) being used as a basis for the dance. Derived from several dances (will nimra, Bourrée, Scottish, Scottish…) , after Prague in 1835, then Vienna in 1839, it is starting from Paris in 1840 that it is spread in whole Europe, giving place to true “a polkamania”.Dance of couple carrying out a circular motion, the principal component is the Pas hammer. Many handbooks, articles and publications of the internal caliper gauge circulated, and the hammer quickly gained all the layers of the population, of the middle-class mediums to most popular. Throughout the 20th century, as for much from folk dances, the musicologic errors, the simplistic amalgams, the sterile quarrels, confusions idenditaires… will denature the hammer which will fall in disuse (cf polska, hammer-mazurka, Polonaise, polish dance, went polacca ).
Jules Perrot is the first Chorégraphe to have carried the hammer with the scene: its Ballet Polka was represented with London in 1844.
The traditional hammer
With its 160 numbers of opus (on 479), Johann Strauss II is without question the “Master” of the hammer of the end of the 19th century (cf the remarkable bond below) . But the Czech type-setters like Bedrich Smetana, Zdeněk Fibich or Antonín Dvořák seek a “national” authenticity more. Jacques Offenbach integrates it in number of its comic operas. Georges Bizet, Gioacchino Rossini ( Small Chinese hammer ), Bohuslav Martinů, Joseph Lanner, Dmitri Chostakovitch or Igor Stravinski ( Hammer circus ), to quote only some of them, also composed of the hammers.
Traditional repertories
- pricked Hammer
- jumped Hammer
- slipped Hammer
- revolving Hammer
- Hammer-paraguaya (binary melody, ternary accompaniment)
- etc
External bonds
- All hammers of Strauss with accompanying notes, for any knowledge on the hammer and its history
- the hammer in the traditional dances of the county of Nice