The Waltz (Archive Episode)

Summary

In Our Time (BBC Radio 4) – "The Waltz"

Original Air Date: October 9, 2025
Host: Melvyn Bragg
Guests: Theresa Buckland (Professor of Dance History), Derek Scott (Professor of Music), Susan (Sue) Jones (Professor of English Literature)

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the waltz: its origins, evolution, cultural and social impact, and the way it has been reflected in literature, music, and society from the 18th century to the present. The panel explores its revolutionary role in changing bodily interaction, its controversial allure, and how it became both a symbol of romance and a signifier of modernity and urban life.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Origins and Early Spread of the Waltz

• Roots in European Folk Tradition:
  • The waltz’s precise origin is hard to pinpoint but is rooted in turning couple dances of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
  • Dances such as Walzer and Dreher emerged in the mid-18th-century Germanic regions. [01:45]
• Arrival in Britain:
  • Brought over by aristocrats and soldiers, the waltz replaced the minuet by the early 19th century.
  • Its revolutionary aspect: partners faced and held one another while spinning as a couple, unlike previous side-by-side patterns.
  • “It’s often been referred to as a shift in body paradigm… a whole new realm of dancers came out, known as round dancers.” (Theresa Buckland, [03:12])

2. The Dance Experience

• Physical Feel:
  • Dancing the waltz (particularly the 19th-century rotary waltz) involves six steps per two bars in triple time, creating a whirling, sometimes dizzying and exhilarating effect. [04:03]
  • The dance could be dreamy or breathless depending on the tempo and included a radical intimacy unique for its time.

3. Music and Musical Innovation

• From Folk to Popular Art:
  • Waltz music became a distinct genre, with composers like Josef Lanner and Johann Strauss Sr. introducing novel musical devices and separating entertainment music from classical forms.
  • Innovation: Strauss’s use of the “Viennese note” and the Oom-pah-pah rhythm created strong musical identifiers for the waltz.
  • “That becomes a marker of the waltz and of the new popular style—if you’re a serious art musician, avoid that note.” (Derek Scott, [06:12])

4. Social and Cultural Transformations

• Scandal and Acceptance:
  • Early waltz faced moral outrage due to physical closeness and the intimacy of the hold, considered lascivious.
  • Gloves and dress codes attempted to mitigate concerns, but dress and bodily contact still made the waltz sensual, as reflected in Madame Bovary’s memorable waltz scene.
  • “Byron thought it was there all the way through… it becomes irresistible very quickly.” (Sue Jones & Theresa Buckland, [09:54])

5. Representation in Literature and the Arts

• Byron, Goethe, Austen:
  • Lord Byron satirized the waltz (1812-13), foregrounding anxieties about its impact, referencing Goethe’s Werther and its “out of body” waltzing. [10:29]
  • Jane Austen’s Emma describes the “irresistible waltz” as a setting for potential romance.
• 19th & Early 20th Century Literature:
  • The waltz often signified both excitement and transgression—seen in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Joyce’s Ulysses. [24:29]
  • Virginia Woolf used the waltz to explore freedom and disorder in The Voyage Out (1915). [32:13]
• In Ballet:
  • Vaslav Nijinsky’s Spectre de la Rose created a new interpretation of masculinity in waltz-driven choreography. [19:31]

6. Social Stratification and Gender Roles

• Who Danced, and How?
  • Strict etiquette dictated posture and proximity by class; closeness was considered vulgar among lower classes. [22:23]
  • Men’s engagement with the waltz changed: initially seen as unmanly, it became an expected social skill, though shifting educational values later led men to eschew dance in favor of “manly” pursuits.
• Wallflowers and Gigolos:
  • Gender imbalances at balls led to “wallflowers” (unpartnered women) and, later, professional male partners (“gigolos”) hired to dance. [30:35]
  • “They were called the gigolos. They didn’t mean… take the women to bed, it meant that the women were lonely, and they picked them up to dance.” (Theresa Buckland, [31:07])

7. The Waltz’s Continuing Evolution

• Changes in Form:
  • Late 19th-century saw the Boston waltz—more gliding, less balletic—as young people sought something new. [25:13]
  • The Merry Widow Waltz (1907) sparked another craze.
  • “It keeps getting an extra charge… the ballet roots come in, it goes better. It seems to be fading, then the English waltz comes in... It sort of recharges itself.” (Theresa Buckland, [27:48])
• Modern City Life and Modernism:
  • Waltz became tied to urban experience—instantiating a cosmopolitan rhythm (with local variants: Scottish, Irish, Geordie waltzes, etc). [34:34]
  • Modernist composers (Stravinsky, Ravel) used the form to explore fragmentation and darkness, as in Ravel’s La Valse and Liszt’s Mephisto waltzes.
  • “The waltz was seen as modern, not necessarily modernist.” (Melvyn Bragg, [41:15])

8. Gender, Sexuality, and Morality

• Association with Women and Romance:
  • Waltzing held dual connotations: grace and romance, but also sensual temptation.
  • “The waltz is associated with women very much… with two sides, the angel and the devil in their makeup.” (Asma Khalid, [34:03])
• Polarization in Society:
  • The waltz crossed class boundaries, providing a unique kind of cultural unity through urbanization—but societal anxieties persisted, enforced by dance etiquette and social hierarchies.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “It’s often been referred to as a shift in body paradigm… a whole new realm of dancers came out.”
  – Theresa Buckland, [03:12]

• “That becomes a marker of the waltz and of the new popular style—if you’re a serious art musician, avoid that note.”
  – Derek Scott, [06:12]

• “…the main ceremonial dance in high society was the minuet… The revolutionary aspect of the waltz was that the man and woman turned to face one another, and then they spun round on their own axis… So this was totally revolutionary.”
  – Asma Khalid, [01:45–03:10]

• “Irresistible very quickly… Jane Austen’s narrator in Emma talks about the walls… the irresistible waltz.”
  – Sue Jones, [09:57]

• “Byron kind of sets a certain tone for the literary responses to the waltz… because he introduces… a reference to Werther… a kind of transportation of the body beyond the body.”
  – Sue Jones, [10:29–11:54]

• “Her head falls on the viscount’s chest… she collapses onto her chair… when she’s on her deathbed… the thrill of her life. She remembers that waltz.”
  – Melvyn Bragg, on Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, [15:08]

• “The waltz was easy to dance… Mark Twain said it was the only dance he could do. All you had to do was whirl your partner round and try not to bump into the furniture.”
  – Melvyn Bragg, [18:46]

• “Spectre de la Rose… tells the story of a young woman being driven by the spirit of the waltz… embodied by Nijinsky.”
  – Sue Jones, [19:31]

• “Anyone can do it, and yet… there’s an interesting aspect with the Victorian, you couldn’t really do much in the way of improvisation… But in this new style of waltzing, you could stride off into new directions.”
  – Asma Khalid, [31:32–31:58]

• “There’s a kind of potential for fragmentation as well as for harmony and getting together.”
  – Sue Jones, referencing Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out, [32:13]

• “The waltz is associated with women very much, and because it’s regarded as very graceful. But of course... as having two sides, the angel and the devil…”
  – Asma Khalid, [34:03]

• “The unity… is the unity of the urban experience. These are no longer country dances.”
  – Melvyn Bragg, [34:34]

• “It’s very difficult to know, but certainly there’s something about the waltz that made it a cosmopolitan genre.”
  – Melvyn Bragg, [35:57]

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Important Timestamps

| Time | Segment/Discussion Point | |---------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:45 | Waltz origins and the shift from minuet; radical body paradigm | | 04:03 | How it feels to dance the waltz | | 06:12 | Musical innovation: Lanner, Strauss, the ever-evolving waltz form | | 10:29 | Byron, Goethe, Werther, and early literary reception | | 13:30 | Social concerns: proximity, "illicit activities" in candlelit ballrooms | | 15:08 | The sensual waltz in Madame Bovary | | 19:31 | Gender, masculinity, and Nijinsky’s “Spectre de la Rose” | | 22:23 | Dance style as a class marker | | 25:13 | Gliding Boston waltz, the Merry Widow craze, musical cross-pollination | | 27:48 | The waltz's persistent renewal through music and culture | | 31:07 | “Gigolos” as male dance partners for hire | | 32:13 | Virginia Woolf and the waltz as creative/fragmentary form | | 33:24 | Dark side of the waltz: Mephisto waltzes, Salome, “Delilah” | | 34:34 | Urbanization and local “waltzes”—making it universally cosmopolitan | | 41:15 | Modernity and the waltz: industrial rhythms, electric age | | 46:10 | Role in novels: George Eliot, artificiality, and realism in dance scenes | | 49:35 | Sheet music democratization; female musicianship; “Leichter Musik” | | 50:29 | Social hierarchies in the ballroom; theater and mass pop culture |

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Bonus Material and Further Reflections

Showmanship and Business

• Strauss Sr. was a musical superstar, leading from the violin, thrilling crowds, and innovating with public concerts, creating a template for popular musical celebrity. [43:47]
• Anna Strauss, his wife, managed family business affairs after he left—a rare acknowledgement of a woman's business acumen in 19th-century music. [48:26]

The Waltz and National Character

• The English were prized for “restraint, elegance, and naturalness,” considering French styles more affected. These national stereotypes were projected onto dance etiquette. [45:25]

Literature and the Waltz

• George Eliot’s “waltzes as artificial,” used to illustrate moral turpitude or realism, offers a counterpoint to notions of waltz naturalism. [46:10]

Class, Inclusion, and Dance Halls

• Sheet music, theater, and dance houses facilitated the spread of the waltz across classes but maintained social hierarchies even on the dance floor. [49:53]

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Conclusion

The waltz traversed continents and classes, becoming at once an emblem of tradition and an engine for modernity, social change, and artistic innovation. Universally adaptable, it both mirrored and influenced evolving ideas about gender, class, morality, and the joy (and risk) of giving oneself to movement and music.

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Further Listening

• For more on cultural history, listen to the next episode: Julian the Apostate: The Roman Emperor Who Restored Paganism.

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(Summary crafted in the spirit of the episode's deep, accessible, and often wry tone.)

Transcript

[Melvin Bragg]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Melvin Bragg]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, dc.

[Melvin Bragg]

I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Melvin Bragg]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Theresa Buckland]

Inner Times on its annual break and we'll be back on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds on the 18th of September. Until then, each week we're offering an episode chosen from our archive of over a thousand programs, which I hope you'll enjoy. Thank you for listening. Hello. When the waltz reached Britain in the early 19th century, it revolutionized the role of dancing and music in our society, fracturing old ways and giving rise to new. While it may seem formal now, it was the informality and daring that drove its popularity, with couples holding each other as they spun round the room to the Blue Danube. And soon the waltz expanded the creative world in poetry, ballet, novellas, and in music that was neither exclusively classical nor nor vulgar but popular. With me to discuss the waltz are Susan Jones, Emeritus professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, Derek Scott, Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Leeds, and Theresa Buckland, Emeritus professor of Dance History and Ethnography at the University of Roehampton. Teresa, can you give us some clear idea of the origins of the waltz?

[Asma Khalid]

Of course, it's very difficult to pinpoint the origins of any popular dance, but we know that during the Renaissance and the Baroque period in Europe, there were several turning dances, couple dancers, a man and a woman, turning together. But it's not until the mid 18th century that we start to get more and more references to dancers such as Walzer and Dreher. And these are mostly in the Germanic lands that we hear about them. These dances then, are taken sometimes by aristocrats, sometimes by soldiers returning from the Napoleonic wars to Britain. And by the end of the first decade of the 19th century, the waltz had arrived and was here to stay. And it actually permeated throughout the whole of society. Prior to this, the main ceremonial dance in high society was the minuet, and in that people stood side by side, that is, a man and a woman stood side by side, and they traced elaborate patterns on the floor. And the revolutionary aspect of the waltz was that the man and woman turned to face one another, and then they Spun round on their own axis, going clockwise, but progressing anti clockwise around the ballroom. So this was totally revolutionary.

[Theresa Buckland]

They don't only face each other, they held each other.

[Asma Khalid]

They held each other very closely, sometimes a bit too closely for the likings of pastors and moral commentators. But it's such a revolutionary move. In fact, it's often been referred to as a shift in body paradigm. And in a way, what do they mean by that body paradigm? It's a shift of the whole way of moving a whole corporeal relationship to space and to other people. And from that a whole new realm of dancers came out, which were known as round dancers. And there were lots of these dancers, not just the waltz. There was later followed by the polka and the mazurka. And there's a whole century of these round dancers. But the waltz was the first and the most stable.

[Theresa Buckland]

So, Theresa, can you describe what it's like to dance the waltz?

[Asma Khalid]

There are lots of waltzes, but the main one in the 19th century was what was known as the Rotary Waltz, that is revolving around. And in that the dancers took six steps over two bars of music. And of course, the key thing about the waltz is that it's in triple time. So it's 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, 3. And in that time you've done a whole circle, but at the same time you're progressing around the room. And the sensation depends, of course, on the music and the sensation. Typically, if it's fast, you can get easily out of breath and it's a very exhilarating feeling. But if the music's slower, of course there's more of a sense of dreaminess, a dreamy quality, a sense of being lost in your own space. Space. But of course, the couple was actually locked into their own space. And that's the radical aspect of the waltz.

[Theresa Buckland]

Thank you, Derek. Derek Scott. From early on, the waltz was associated with the Germanic world.

[Melvin Bragg]

At first, yes, the. The waltz very much associated with the German dance. Often the German dance meant a waltz to the British. But what intrigues me is that the 1820s, when Josef Lanner and Josef Strauss the elder come on the scene, then we have a revolutionary style of music that goes with the waltz. And in the hands of Johann Strauss, the father, new things happen which create the chasm that then opens up in the 19th century between what is seen as entertainment music and what is seen as art music or serious music. There's also the folk, traditional kind of music. But now we have this third type of music. And if no one objects to my singing Examples. I can give you an idea of some of the new things that Johann Strauss Sr did. For example, his Walsh Heimat, Klinger, the Sounds of Home begins da da da. Well, that note is known as the leading note in music. Da should go to la. It's the note ti which will bring us back to do. But now he goes da da da da da da da falls downward. This was regarded as very, very unusual at the time. In fact, it became known as the vina richer nota or in England, the Viennese note. He soon does the same with the sixth degree of the scale, the la do re mi fosso la If I quote from Johann Strauss the Younger, Die Fledemaus Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da that note da should resolve downwards. He leaves it hanging like that. That becomes a marker of the walls and of the new popular style that if you're a serious art musician, avoid that note. And finally, the Oom Papa accompaniment. That was very rare before Josef Lana and Johann Strauss the Elder. In fact, if you hear the Un Papa in late Schubert, you'd bet that it's because he's been listening to Lana or Strauss.

[Theresa Buckland]

Can you account for the. That combination of music and the dance? I mean, they seemed made for each other. Who made them for each other?

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, of course, Strauss was a very proficient dance violinist, so he's very immersed in the style Strauss and Lanner played together. Lana got the really the best job of being the leader of the court orchestra and playing the court balls. But Johann Strauss was, when he argued with Lano, split up, made his way successfully in playing for dancehalls for the middle class in Vienna and he saw what was. He was very alert to what was going to attract audiences. And it has to be said that half of the reason he was alert was he wanted to make money.

[Theresa Buckland]

Well, makes many people alert, doesn't it? I think the surprise in your voice, which surprises me really.

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, I do have a puritanical nature, you know.

[Theresa Buckland]

Can we go to you, Susan? You have the music?

[Sue Jones]

Yeah.

[Theresa Buckland]

Who is dancing it in the first place? And then why did it sort of spread across the plane?

[Sue Jones]

It was sponsored by the court and we're talking about the Austro Hungarian Empire here. And of course, famously, the Congress of Vienna is a moment when nations are coming together to solve the problem of the end of the Napoleonic era. And a lot of diplomacy was going on during the day and a lot of waltzing was a kind of relief at night. So you were getting Diplomats in all sorts of people. And then of course it spreads to further down the chain. But it's also associated with the lascivious, the rather racy side of the wolf's coupling.

[Theresa Buckland]

So when it's suggesting that the lascivious and the basic side is only when you go down the chain, I'm not.

[Sue Jones]

Suggesting that at all. And I think, for example, Lord Byron was one who did not, who thought that it was there all the way through. So when it comes to England, you know, you're really dealing with. I mean, okay, it's been. It has a kind of moral opprobrium attached to it, but at the same time it is acknowledged by, by the Hanoverian monarchs that this is doable because they like doing it.

[Theresa Buckland]

And it becomes irresistible very quickly, doesn't it?

[Sue Jones]

It becomes very irresistible. And it's interesting you use that word irresistible because that's exactly what Jane Austen's narrator in Emma talks about. The walls when they're going to have a gathering which is hopefully going to generate some kind of romantic coupling and somebody's playing the irresistible waltz. It's very interesting the way Austen uses this particular word here.

[Theresa Buckland]

Its influence seems to spread outside dance and into the other arts.

[Sue Jones]

Yes, I think it particularly with relation to Byron, for example, who famously wrote satire on Waltzing in 1812. He. He published it in 1813 and then really distanced himself from this satire. He gave the poem, it's the long poem, a narrative voice by one gentleman farmer or gentleman yeoman, Horace Hornam, and he's worried about his daughters engaging in this. So Byron kind of sets a certain tone for the literary responses to the waltz, particularly, I think, because he introduces into the poem a reference to Werther, to Goethe's Werther, which was extremely influential.

[Theresa Buckland]

Throughout literary revolutions in Werther, that it was extraordinarily influential.

[Sue Jones]

Young man, incredible.

[Theresa Buckland]

His own life.

[Sue Jones]

And this kind of anxiety comes out in Byron's reference to Werther, where he actually cites Werther's reference to the waltz. He and Lottie are getting together and having this amazingly out of body experience almost. He said, I feel I'm not human. Which is an extraordinary thing.

[Theresa Buckland]

Was this while he was dancing or.

[Sue Jones]

I guess it was. We don't know exactly what Goethe was thinking of there, but I think that's the idea that there's a kind of transportation of the body beyond the body.

[Asma Khalid]

I think that's true, sue, that this idea of being out of your own body, the sense of entering another world. But in the initial years There was a lot of antagonism towards the waltz, but it then became the staple dance of the 19th century. It was so important and it lasted well, it still danced today, but it was the main dance on the ballroom. It went waltz, quadrille, quadrille, waltz, waltz, waltz, waltz. By the end of the century, it was almost as though there was nothing other than waltz. And the problem was by the end of the century, of course, was that young people were getting very tired of it indeed.

[Theresa Buckland]

And there was tired of it or tired by it?

[Asma Khalid]

Probably a bit of both, because by the end of the century, the military bands were the main music providers and they obviously, as professional musicians, got bored with the music and they wanted a bit more pep and go into it. And so they sped everything up. And of course that delighted the young people, but not the old people who were watching. And there was lots of complaints about rowdyism in the ballroom.

[Theresa Buckland]

So can you just tell us a little bit more, in your view, why there was what you alluded to, this worrying side for parents and the more staid in society that this was taking over?

[Asma Khalid]

Well, obviously it's about young men and young women being in very close proximity. They're dancing very often in ballrooms which are lit only by candlelight, and they might sneak off and get up to illicit activities.

[Theresa Buckland]

You were to come in.

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, first of all, I would say that the earlier waltz, when Byron gets annoyed about the waltz, is different to the waltz of the later 1820s. The waltz changes a lot. And yes, at first the worry is about the face to face and hand contact, although gloves become mandatory to try and reduce fingers on bodies. But then you have to consider at that time, the Empire line. There's not much corsetry or undergarments, so men can kind of feel around if they choose when they're dancing. But as the 1880s progress and ballrooms are built and parquet flooring is introduced, the waltz speeds up the Landla. It had hops in it, it had some stamps in it. The waltz has glides, it gets faster and faster. People worry about women's dresses whirling up as they're going round. And all this begins to give the waltz a very sensual kind of atmosphere to it. And I'm thinking the one thing that always comes to mind when I think of the waltz in literature is Madame Bovary dancing the waltz in Flaubert's novel. You read that description, she's probably had a couple of glasses of champagne. The waltz makes you dizzy. It goes on for about seven or eight Minutes, you get a five minute break then. And then another waltz starts you going. Her head falls on the viscount's chest. At one point she notices her dress is rubbing against his trouser leg and it's all very sensual. She collapses onto her chair at the end. But when she's on her deathbed, you know, the remarkable thing is that this is the one thing, the great thrill of her life. She remembers that waltz with her. Life was a mess, but the waltz did it for her.

[Theresa Buckland]

They also carried their own, their own kitted seamstresses around the ballroom edges, because if anybody stood on a dress and it got ripped, they rushed on with a needle and thread and hitched it all together.

[Melvin Bragg]

Men were not to wear boots in.

[Asma Khalid]

The dance hall and especially military men were not to wear spurs, of course. But then there were these poor wallflowers who used to go to the ballroom expecting to have their first debutante dance. And there were no men sometimes coming in. So the poor women would spend a lot of time in the anterooms pretending they were having their dresses sewn, when really it was because they couldn't get a partner because there weren't enough men in the ballroom by the end of the century.

[Theresa Buckland]

Now, let's talk about not enough men. It was quite difficult to get men onto the floor at the beginning, wasn't it? Because dancing. These are reasons. You'll tell me if I'm wrong. Obviously, first of all, it was not thought to be manly to dance. Secondly, it was not thought to be the done thing to clasp a woman to your bosom and dance. And thirdly, it was thought to be rather, rather lower cluster dance, like this. You should go back to the minuet and be good mannered like your parents had been. Is there anything in that?

[Asma Khalid]

There's a lot to say about this because certainly in the late 18th, early 19th century in, if you wanted to be regarded as a gentleman, you should be able to dance and have the appropriate training from a dancing teacher.

[Theresa Buckland]

So it had gone into a different phase there. It wasn't a sort of the Rascals dance. It was become. It became a sort of.

[Asma Khalid]

It became so accepted in society that it was expected that a man knew how to waltz. And one of the issues, of course, was dance has always had a problem with Christianity and also with Cartesian philosophy about body being lesser than the mind and there being the mind, body split, et cetera. And of course the Victorians were wonderful at using this sort of philosophy to justify things. So for the men, very often they thought, well, that's to do with the body. It's what women do. Dancing. And also, they thought that it was unmanly to dance, because from the mid 19th century in Britain, men were being sent away to public school. And at that point, dancing lessons had been replaced by rugby and organized sports. So the boys would be get a little bit of training at home with their sisters in dancing, go away to public school, then they would go to university, then they would go into men's clubs. And so it created, by the end of the century, this whole homosocial atmosphere where they didn't really want to be with women and do women's things. So consequently, they just used to hang around in their London clubs and turn up when supper was served at some of the balls. And the poor hostesses were getting very annoyed because they had all these wallflowers and nobody to dance with them.

[Theresa Buckland]

You want to say something?

[Melvin Bragg]

I think Teresa's right about the unmanliness of music in general, actually, but dancing in particular. And I think that it was helpful that the waltz was easy to dance. I mean, Mark Twain said it was the only dance he could do. All you had to do was whirl your partner round and try not to bump into the furniture. Whereas a minuet, you could spend weeks trying to learn the steps of a minuet.

[Asma Khalid]

With a minuet, you really needed a dancing teacher, a dancing master, because what you were trying to do was to demonstrate your social distinction, because you could afford to employ somebody. And therefore, with these social skills, you might be able to rise up the hierarchy.

[Theresa Buckland]

Susan?

[Sue Jones]

Yes, I think that whole improvisational quality of the waltz is very important there. But going back to the issue of gender, of course, we're jumping ahead here to the coming of the Ballets Russes in Paris and London. You know, one of the characters who was so formative in thinking about male dancing is Nijinsky Vaslov Nijinsky, of the Ballet Russe company run by Serge Diaghilev. Now, there were plenty of male dancers on stage before Nijinsky, but he had a particular hit with a ballet in 1911, the Spectre de la Rose. Spectre of the Rose, which was based on a Gautier and Vaudoyer scenario and with choreography by Michel Fokine. And it tells the story of a young woman coming back from the ball. She's asleep, so she has to dance as if she's asleep, but she's being driven by the spirit of the waltz. And the waltz is incarnated, embodied by Nijinsky, who is a very muscular dancer. But what he did was to kind of feminize the idea of that muscular masculinity. He made a pose with his arms in fifth position, au courande, which means the arms above the head. And he crossed the hands over and leant slightly to the side, as if he's, you know, about to fade, perhaps, or give the scent of the rose to the girl. He's driving through this wall.

[Asma Khalid]

America is changing, and so is the world.

[Melvin Bragg]

But what's happening in America is, isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Melvin Bragg]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Melvin Bragg]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Theresa Buckland]

So if we've referred a little to that, how the aristocracy took. Took it to heart and the Queen Victoria even went, yes, but she did go.

[Melvin Bragg]

She did.

[Sue Jones]

She danced and she liked and she liked it.

[Theresa Buckland]

And so. And we've talked about people who can go to ballrooms, but one of the interesting things for me is that it went right across society. So you're getting people in small towns and villages saying, no, we needn't do these folk dances. We'll actually, we'll have a walls now.

[Asma Khalid]

But the interesting thing is, yes, they're all doing the waltz, but the question is where and how? Because style distinguished who you were in the social hierarchy. So there are lots of images from dancing teacher manuals which show you this is the correct way to stand. This is the aristocratic way to stand with an erect back at a respectful distance from your partner and glancing over the shoulder of your partner, never looking at them intently. Whereas if you're low class, you are very close together, you clutch your partner. And that was regarded as being the epitome of bad taste.

[Melvin Bragg]

Yes. I've certainly read reviews of dancing in some New York ballrooms in the 1870s, remarking on this very thing, dance and such a vulgar way, these people.

[Theresa Buckland]

But the British seem to admit that the Americans danced better than they did.

[Asma Khalid]

They did. They did. Well, that was because they took care over their lessons. And the problem, of course, as we've talked about the men, of course, they're responsible for steering. And if you haven't had lessons, you don't always know how to steer your partner. And they weren't very good at going the other way around, even when they grasped the basics. So that's why a lot of people got very dizzy, was because they did what's known as the natural turn. You turn to the right all the time. And there's a very funny song by George Grossmith called Do youo Reverse? Because it was thought to be the epitome of bad taste to reverse in front of Queen Victoria. And also actually in the Germanic courts as well. And I suspect that the reason for this is because people couldn't do it very well. And they didn't want anybody falling over.

[Theresa Buckland]

In front of royalty, taught and taught and taught to do that.

[Asma Khalid]

It's not easy, is it?

[Theresa Buckland]

Once you get the hang of it, it's all right, I mean, provided you don't want to be perfect.

[Asma Khalid]

But perseverance, that's really.

[Sue Jones]

That's really interesting because, you know, James Joyce and Ulysses in the CSA episode of Ulysses, actually talks about waltzing a lot. He's talking about night down Dublin, of course, and he's talking about the red light district. But there are reverse turns in that description there. And there's very much a sense that the waltz is driving this scene. So it still retains that association with doubtful morals in that particular, actually. He mentions the hesitation waltz. Perhaps that's one for.

[Asma Khalid]

Well, now we're into a sort of a new style of waltzing which occurred towards the end of the 19th century, possibly from America, England or everywhere. Mostly from America. But it was perfected, if one can say that in. In England, it was called the Boston, which suggests where it came from. And unusually for a popular dance form, it was developed by the upper middle classes. It wasn't one of those dances that necessarily came from the peasantry or from a folk background. It was already the existing style of. Not the style. It was the existing basis of waltz. It was done to waltz music. But there's a new style of waltz music comes in the 1900s. And the response of that by the dancers was to glide more and also not to turn the feet out, because the waltz had always been danced in the 19th century using the ballet technique. Toe down, first, feet turned out. Up on your toes as you went. Down, up, up, down, up. And you use your third position to touch. Young people didn't want that in the early 1900s and listening to these dreamy waltzes, they wanted to glide. So what they did was to walk. And you get this long stretched out walking on the diagonal to this dreamy music, which Derek, I think, you know, like the Merry widow.

[Melvin Bragg]

And yes, two things happen, really. There is, as you say, that the Boston Waltz tends nearly always to be called the English waltz in England. And doesn't matter who writes. I mean, James Malloy was Irish, but just the song TWA Li is the English waltz. You know, it's a slower waltz. And Theresa's saying. Then with the Merrywitho in 1905, which is a sensation in London in 1907, we have the Valse Moderata. It falls a little bit between the two. But the Merry Widow Waltz, it's a little faster than the English waltz, slower than the Venice Waltz. It sets off another waltz craze.

[Asma Khalid]

And then we have that English school of waltz composers. Archibald Joyce, of course, went down well.

[Melvin Bragg]

On the Titanic, but then also went down badly on the Titanic as well.

[Theresa Buckland]

It seems to me, is that it keeps being. Getting an extra charge. It's going well. And then the ballet roots come in. It goes in better. It seems to be fading a bit. And then this English waltz comes in. Does it always get. Does it all sort of recharge itself? It sort of recharge itself now.

[Melvin Bragg]

It doesn't look strictly, you know, even today. This morning I was listening to the radio and I heard someone singing Moon River. I thought, oh, it's a walls. They must know. I'm participating in a program about waltzing. Are you lonesome tonight, Elv Presley? I had the Last waltz with you and your.

[Theresa Buckland]

Save the Last walls for me.

[Sue Jones]

Save me the Last Waltzes. Zelda Fitzgerald's novel. Yes, but also I was thinking of the Merry Widow. Yeah, of course, it gets into Beckett's happy days. It's the last. Of course, Winnie is listening to the gramophone and they're playing.

[Melvin Bragg]

It causes another resurgence of waltz. But by the mid-30s, people are getting a bit sick of. Yes, they. They prefer the foxtrot by then much.

[Asma Khalid]

Well, they had a big tussle to try and rest the waltz back from the foxtrot.

[Theresa Buckland]

Can we go back. Can we go back to who is being pulled in by this? Who is following Follow it like PI days. Young people follow particular groups and bands and so on. Who were people following the waltz? They'd go anywhere for a waltz. To see a wall, to dance a wall.

[Asma Khalid]

Obviously there was a huge dance craze from about 1910 across Europe and North America, mainly pushed along by, of course, the arrival of ragtime music. And the tango and the waltz had a bit of a struggle keeping up. But then, of course, there were these people, these dancers, these social dancers and also these teachers.

[Theresa Buckland]

What do you mean by social dancers?

[Asma Khalid]

By social dancers, I mean People who were keen dancers who belonged to societies, who were these upper class people, mostly in the West End of London. And of course, again, it's this aspirational society. People wanted to look glamorous and dance like people like Josephine Bradley. They were featured in all of the magazines. George Fontana, Victor Sylvester, of course, all of these people who had a hand in actually really not quite cementing, but certainly tidying up and saying, no, a waltz has got to be two steps and the third step you pull the feet together. It's not a foxtrot, which is more open ended.

[Melvin Bragg]

But I was going to say that, yes, there were men who were good at dancing, whose services would be for hire in some ballrooms for a time. Victor Sylvester as well, although he became obviously a ballroom champion himself.

[Theresa Buckland]

But interestingly enough, they were known as gigolos sometimes, weren't they? Yes, they were.

[Melvin Bragg]

I'd like to comment on that.

[Theresa Buckland]

Well, no, that's the connotation of the word you're taking. But when I'm on holiday, Blackpool, with my father, we went to the Tower, in the Tower Ballroom and these men sitting around and they were called the gigolos. They didn't mean they picked up the women to take them to bed, it meant that the women were looking lonely and they picked them up to dance with them so that the thing would go with a bang.

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, I.

[Theresa Buckland]

You didn't hear, you know. No, no, you don't know about that, that's amazing.

[Melvin Bragg]

But obviously, take your word for it, now I'm worried.

[Theresa Buckland]

I talked to one of the blokes and he was very pleased about being a giggler. He called it a gigolo.

[Asma Khalid]

That's exactly how my mother referred to them as.

[Theresa Buckland]

Well, yes. So you know about giggles. There's two of us here, one of you, we're doing well.

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, my ignorance is now on display.

[Sue Jones]

I'm on the fence because I think that whole issue of improvisation is so interesting, you know, the fact that anyone can do it and yet it.

[Asma Khalid]

But there's an interesting aspect with the Victorian. You couldn't really do much in the way of improvisation because you were still tied. But in this new style of waltzing, you could stride off into new directions. You could go sideways if you're going to bump into somebody.

[Sue Jones]

Right, well, that's interesting because bizarrely enough, Virginia Woolf takes off on that notion of improvisation in the waltz in her very first novel, voyage out in 1915, which is interesting.

[Theresa Buckland]

What do you mean, takes off? What'd she do, though? I haven't read that.

[Sue Jones]

Well, she puts a waltz at the center of the novel. I mean, it isn't foregrounded as such, but it tells the story of a young woman trying to find herself. And this is where, you know, a lot of the literati are using the waltz as a cultural figure or cultural symbol of the possibility of freedom, because you can do things with the walls. And she has a waltz being performed by the guests at a hotel in South America. They're all in South America. And the female protagonist is playing the waltz with a trio, and the trio dashes into simultaneously getting the waltz together at some point, and people just start doing their own thing. And then there's a crash, presumably the crash of symbols of the trio, and then people break up. What Woolf is doing there is. She's showing that there is a darker side to the walls. So there's a kind of potential for fragmentation as well as for harmony and getting together.

[Melvin Bragg]

It's interesting because that has a history, of course, because Liszt wrote four Mephisto waltzes where the waltz becomes the devil genre. And there's a kind of seedy side to the waltz that's always ready to emerge. Salome, Richard Strauss, the Dance of the Seven Veils, the striptease, is a waltz, really, with some Orientalist features to it. And even in more recent times. Think of Tom Jones with Delilah. I saw the light on the night as I passed by the window. Yeah, it's all that, you know, Delilah and seductiveness.

[Asma Khalid]

The waltz is associated with women very much, and because it's regarded as very graceful. But of course, with women, as we say, you know, there's these. The Victorians and later, the view that women and earlier, indeed, as having two sides, the angel and the devil in their makeup.

[Theresa Buckland]

Yes.

[Asma Khalid]

So the waltz can go either way, as you say.

[Theresa Buckland]

You would have thought of the fact that it went through society in the way you suggested earlier in the program, might have given society some kind of cultural unity. Did it?

[Sue Jones]

To an extent.

[Melvin Bragg]

If I jump in here and say that, well, is it not interesting that the wall spreads to so many countries, whether it's Australia, South America, China, all over Europe, but people develop their own local waltzes. There'll be Scottish waltzes, Irish waltzes, Cockles and mussels, you know, old English waltzes, the pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green, which then becomes a Geordie waltz as Cushy Butterfield. You have these waltzes everywhere, you know, so somehow the unity, if there is one, I think there is, is the unity of the urban experience. These are no longer country dances. These are urban dances. And cities become more and more like each other as the 19th century progresses and into the 20th century. And I think the Wall street fits into that so well.

[Sue Jones]

Is that because of the rhythm? Partly, though, you know, I mean, obviously it is to some extent. I'm thinking that, you know, of John Cage writing 49 waltzes for five boroughs, which, of course, there isn't a note of music in it anywhere. It's films of trains and urban noises that replicate that waltz rhythm, that 1, 2, 3. There's something atavistic about it.

[Melvin Bragg]

It's very difficult to know, but certainly there's something about the waltz that made it a cosmopolitan genre. The Lendler never. You play a landlord, people think of Austria, you play a Strathspey, the people think of Scotland. You know, there are certain things that don't seem to move globally. But then you'll get a place like Vienna, a new type of war arises, goes around the world. You'll get a place like Trenchtown, Jamaica, reggae arises and goes around the world. And I've never found a satisfactory explanation why that sometimes happens. New Orleans and jazz.

[Asma Khalid]

But the similar thing happened with the polka, wouldn't you say?

[Melvin Bragg]

I were. In fact, I was thinking the polka.

[Theresa Buckland]

When you say.

[Melvin Bragg]

I mean the polka, the waltz drove out everything, because the polka, polka.

[Asma Khalid]

In the 1840s.

[Melvin Bragg]

Johann Strauss the elder didn't write many polkas, but his sons certainly did write loads of polkas. And yes, the polka is also cosmopolitan. You get Native American polkas, you know, you get polkas everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

But I would say that the polka never ousted the waltz as the epitome of the most romantic dance possible.

[Melvin Bragg]

No. And it's still, for many people, the polka seems more like a folk dance than a dance with any sign of modernity.

[Sue Jones]

How chirpy.

[Asma Khalid]

And Scott, the dancing master, said that. He said, if you read any novel, you know, the hero is always the perfect waltzer.

[Sue Jones]

Exactly.

[Asma Khalid]

And so is the heroine, the perfect waltzer. That nobody. No words of love were ever uttered when they were dancing the polka.

[Melvin Bragg]

It's difficult to be taken seriously while you're hopping around.

[Theresa Buckland]

I love you, sue did it. How did it connect with modernism?

[Sue Jones]

Well, I think it's that issue of fragmentation that we mentioned, that the idea that there's a potential, as I said, for the waltz to break up, for the waltz to insert gaps into itself, like the hesitation waltz to syncopate. You can get a jazz waltz, which is a 2, 4 wall time with a waltz rhythm over the top. Stravinsky wrote waltzes at the same time as Spectre was being performed, you know, so he did a waltz for Petrushka and it's extremely dark. It's the ballerina and the Moore characters, puppet characters in Petrushka waltzing together and then it breaks up and ends in disaster in fact with the murder of Petrushka. But I think it's this idea that there's disintegration as well that's possible. I mean I would think perhaps Ravel is someone to bring in at this point because of the idea of the turn of the century. Didn't Ravel say something, something about we're dancing on the edge of a volcano?

[Melvin Bragg]

You know he wrote Laval and he.

[Sue Jones]

Wrote Lavalce 1911 and then 1920 there were two. Two. And yeah, then I think it picks up on some of those effects that I mean famously Diaghilev refused Ravel's Lavals but Frederic maybe, you know, but I.

[Melvin Bragg]

Know was unreliable in the way that he refused things, you know, he, he would refuse things that we now think are great. He refused Born Williams Job, for example, which is one of his best works, you know.

[Theresa Buckland]

Yeah, I think something. How long the piece of music lasted. Stravinsky said to the end, my dear.

[Melvin Bragg]

Great answer.

[Sue Jones]

Yeah. But then Ashton and Balanchine, to go back to Melvin's question, they, they choreographed La Valse and it was again its open endedness, its bizarre kind of sense of drifting into, in Balanchine's case, into the arms of death. You know, there's this, this worry about character changing as you know, Woolf talked about in 1910, human character.

[Melvin Bragg]

And I do think a lot of people think that about Laval's but Ravel himself denied it. But one thing I'd like to say that I'm glad you mentioned jazz Mundon because it's a raggy waltz. But Dave Rubek, great. But the other thing I think we have to be clear that the waltz was seen as modern, not necessarily modernist. You know, we're talking about modernism, the second being East Schoenberg wrote a waltz, you know, it's different to the modernity of the waltz. And when you think that something like Johann Strauss waltz Accelerations, acceleration inspired by the electric motor. It's part of the modern age. Electricity is part of the time when the Sarasses were writing and electrical references are found in their waltzes. So they're aware of modernity and there's.

[Asma Khalid]

A school of thought, isn't there? And the rhythm of the waltz is industrial in tone, that it's mechanistic.

[Melvin Bragg]

People do think that, but I think.

[Asma Khalid]

That I don't agree with it. But it's an argument.

[Melvin Bragg]

People look at notes on the page and. Or. Or they hear a calliope, a steam organ playing a waltz, and it's boom, bing, bing, boom. But you listen to an orchestra like Venus Philharmonic that know their horses. It's not boom, ching, ching, but it's often ahead of the beat. Boom, ching, ching, boom. Just slightly ahead and not all the time. You have to have the feel of it. It's just like in jazz. If you've got no feel to swing, it doesn't work. If you've got no feel for that Viennese rhythm in the waltz, it doesn't work as a Viennese waltz.

[Theresa Buckland]

So fine. You think. It's in no danger becoming a museum piece.

[Melvin Bragg]

What I worry about is when I hear C. Strictly Come Dancing. And they use pieces that are not waltzes to dance the waltz. Just because you can divide something into threes. For example, Memory of Lloyd Webber, they've used this a couple of times. It's a slow song memory, but each thing goes into. So you can think of it as. But it's not at that speed. It's a slow four. It's not a fast three. And I wish Strictly would use the right meters for their dancers.

[Theresa Buckland]

Anything.

[Asma Khalid]

Well, I do agree, but of course it's about attracting an audience with popular music, music that they can recognize music of now. So I understand why they do it.

[Theresa Buckland]

Thank you very much indeed. Thanks to Theresa Buckland, Sue Jones and Derek Scott, and to our studio engineer, Sue Mayo. Next week, Julian the Apostate, the Roman emperor who removed Christianity as a straight religion and restored paganism. Thanks for listening.

[Asma Khalid]

And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.

[Theresa Buckland]

What would you like to have said you didn't say in the program?

[Melvin Bragg]

I've only just thought of this, but probably I'd like to say something about showmanship, show business. And Johann Strauss. How did he portray himself? Why did people go into ecstasies at his concerts? Well, sometimes they were concerts. And at his playing, what was it about him?

[Theresa Buckland]

Why did he do what he did, you mean?

[Melvin Bragg]

And why did it thrill people?

[Theresa Buckland]

Well, you're supposed to be an expert. What's your view? Oh, well, you are an expert. You're not supposed to be an expert. You are an expert. What's your view?

[Melvin Bragg]

I thought you were going to go around and find out what everyone said. Well, briefly, it was the way that he did not conduct his orchestra with a baton. He led from the violin because he was a violinist and he was renowned for moving about. His whole body moved with the music. He tapped his foot to the music. A classical musician shouldn't tap their foot to the music. And when he gave performances, for example, in public parks, he had the idea of ticketing the events, paying police to rope things off, and then paying for spectacular displays, lighting, fireworks, all that kind of thing. And of course, this all gave him a kind of superstardom. And he became, I think, the first global musical superstar. I know Paganini toured, but Johann Strauss's father could tour with an entire orchestra. People wanted him so much.

[Asma Khalid]

I would like to add something about the waltz being associated with modernity all the time. Not necessarily modernism, but modernity. It seems to reinvent itself so that when it comes back again in the early 20th century century, it's associated with all those qualities which were thought to be modern, that is natural movement and a lack of artificiality. And that's so important in terms of the concept of Englishness.

[Theresa Buckland]

And why?

[Asma Khalid]

Because the English, whoever the English are, there's this notion that develops in the 19th century that the English are true characters. When you look at. When they looked at people from France, say, which had retained a more, they would argue, affected etiquette and style of dancing, there was a very widespread notion that a national character could be seen in the way in which people danced. And so for the English, it was restrained, it was elegant, it was natural lack of showmanship, but in total control. And that accords very much with the Victorian notion of the upper class gentleman.

[Theresa Buckland]

Sure.

[Sue Jones]

I would like to have added something about the novelist George eliot in the 19th century, whom we didn't get to talk about. But she actually uses the dance as form in several of her novels and particularly in Adam Bede. But she uses the dance form as a way of showing moral turpitude to some degree. You know, when Arthur Donna Thorne has organized a dance to get off with Hetty Sorrel, you know, and it leads to the demise of Hetty Sorrel, I mean, to her tragedy, particularly, because it's at the center of the novel. It's not like Shakespearean comedy where you have a dance at the end. But what's interesting about Elliot is that she does pepper references to the waltz here and there, because she's talking about rustic dances, but she's also talking about waltzes as artificial, which is quite the opposite of Therese's point. She references the bird Waltz, for example, when people are discussing before the big dance in Adam Bede. That was in 1859. She's actually looking back to an earlier time where the waltz was looked down upon at the beginning of the century. And the bird waltz is, she sees as something as highly artificial, that it has nothing to do with real birds. And of course, that was Elliot's structuring of her novel around the whole issue of what is real realism. You know, she was very interested in thinking about ordinary people as well as the aristocracy and Maggie Tulliver and Milon the Floss famously doesn't know how to waltz. She does the rustic dances and Gwendolyn Harleth in Daniel Deronderin in 1876. It has physical antipathy to the closed position of the waltz. There's a particular character she wants to avoid and she refuses to waltz even though people tell her she can waltz very well.

[Melvin Bragg]

I've thought of another thing that I wish I'd said and that's the business of the waltz. Johann Strauss, father and the publisher Tobias Haslinger just thought young women in middle class households are all playing the piano. Why don't we do a waltz series for girls? And they published waltzes for them to play. And these waltzes are then easy because they're learning. So the term is Leichter Musik and it's that term, Leichter Musik, that gives us the term light music. Although we no longer think it means the easy music, we think we know what light music means and that's why someone then invented Easy listening is another one and another thing. On the subject of the business of music, I wish I'd credited Anna Strauss, Johann Strauss, the eldest wife, because he left her, he left the kids and she had to take over. And she was the one that set them on very good business careers. She was the one that was in charge of over 200 staff running the Strauss business.

[Asma Khalid]

And I think following on from that to highlight the role that the theatre played in popularizing these tunes and also in developing the sheet music industry, which went back and forth, particularly across the Atlantic, didn't it?

[Melvin Bragg]

And I have to say, because they popularized it so much and the dance halls that did that as well, the nobility in Vienna began to be worried because if they went to the spell dance hall in Leopoldstadt, they could end up bumping into a greengrocer, you know, or something like dreadful.

[Asma Khalid]

Well, Mr. Puter was not happy about that at all. In A Diary of a Nobody, the Diary of a Nobody, where he thinks he's made it because he's going to the mayor's ball. And when he gets there, he finds that there's, you know, he's dancing with green grocers and he thought that he was going somewhere.

[Melvin Bragg]

You see, they didn't get invited to the huntballs.

[Asma Khalid]

Well, the hunt ball was something else. And, you know, in the mid 19th century, they were still in some places putting a rope across the ballroom so that the aristocracy could be at the high position, which is nearest the musicians and tradespeople. But of course, the quite elevated tradespeople would be at the bottom and there the twain should meet. It was all very strictly controlled. It gets very, very hierarchical. In the 19th century in Britain, people.

[Melvin Bragg]

Put up with it, did they?

[Theresa Buckland]

Obviously they didn't tear the place down.

[Sue Jones]

Yes.

[Asma Khalid]

But then I think they got more subtle means by getting stewards and MCs to make sure that the right person was in the right set. Because of course you had the quadrille and when you called for another couple, you had to make sure they went from the bottom of the room. Yes.

[Sue Jones]

And when you mentioned the theatre, the importance of the theatre, I'm thinking of the music halls as well. At the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, you know, someone like Arthur Sullivan was doing, became.

[Asma Khalid]

Quite gentrified, didn't it?

[Sue Jones]

Yes, it did. But then there were the, you know, you could sit in the golf as well.

[Asma Khalid]

Yes.

[Sue Jones]

And you could see waltzes being performed in the ballets, in part the music hall.

[Asma Khalid]

And there's some wonderful footage from the late Victorian period of street girls dancing in the East End of London doing waltzes.

[Melvin Bragg]

But backing up on what sue has just said, you'll remember that in Patience, the. The line. In the end he was lost totally and married a girl from the corps de ballet. Very unfair. Research has shown that was a very unfair remark about ballet girls.

[Theresa Buckland]

Well, thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much.

[Asma Khalid]

Thank you.

[Melvin Bragg]

It's quite dry in here. Thank you very much.

[Sue Jones]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Asma Khalid]

Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Melvin Bragg]

In Our Time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson and it's a BBC Studios production.

[Asma Khalid]

Hello, my name is Alex von Tunzelman and I want to introduce you to history's heroes, the BBC's breathtaking high stakes story led podcast shining a light on extraordinary people and ordinary people who become extraordinary, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers.

[Sue Jones]

You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry.

[Melvin Bragg]

Sonny, you'll have as good a face.

[Sue Jones]

As any of us when I'm done with you.

[Asma Khalid]

And the woman who created the international charity Save the Children. Subscribe to History's Heroes on BBC Icy Sounds. America is changing, and so is the world.

[Melvin Bragg]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Melvin Bragg]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Melvin Bragg]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.