The name
waltz comes from the German verb , which Britannica says means "to revolve." Although French writers have attempted to connect the waltz to the 16th century , firm evidence is lacking connecting this Italian form to the earliest occurrence in the mid‑18th century of to describe dancing. The waltz style quickly became a style of grace and elegance; therefore, many Classical and Romantic period composers were interested in using it. Classical composers traditionally supplied music for dancing when required, and
Franz Schubert's waltzes (including the
Valses Sentimentales and Valses Nobles) were written for household dancing, without any pretence at being art music. However,
Frédéric Chopin's surviving
18 waltzes (five he wrote as a child), along with his
mazurkas and
polonaises, were clearly not intended for dance. They marked the adoption of the waltz and other dance forms as serious composition genres. Other notable contributions to the waltz genre in classical music include 16 by
Johannes Brahms (originally for
piano duet), and
Maurice Ravel's
Valses nobles et sentimentales for piano and
La valse for orchestra. Other examples of popular waltzes include "
Invitation to the Dance" by
Weber, "
Un bal" by
Berlioz, "
The Skater's Waltz" by
Waldteufel, "
Sobre las Olas" by
Rosas, "
Waltz of the Flowers" by
Tchaikovsky, "
Waves of the Danube" by
Ivanovici, and Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2. 32nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire,
Sultan Abdulaziz, also composed a waltz named "Invitation to Waltz". The long period of the waltz's popularity was brought to an end by the
First World War, which destroyed the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the Viennese culture which had nurtured it for so long. European light music shifted from Vienna to Berlin, and compositions by composers such as
Gustav Mahler,
Igor Stravinsky, and
William Walton treated the dance in a nostalgic or grotesque manner as a thing of the past. Waltzes nevertheless continued to be written by composers of light music, such as
Eric Coates,
Robert Stolz,
Ivor Novello,
Richard Rodgers,
Cole Porter,
Oscar Straus, and
Stephen Sondheim. The Australian composer
Julian Cochran composed piano and orchestral works using the French title
Valses, closer to the Latin origin, to mitigate assumptions of a Viennese style. The predominant ballroom form in the 20th century has become the
slow waltz, which rose to popularity around 1910 and was derived from the
Valse Boston of the 1870s. Examples derived from popular songs include "
Ramona" (1927), "
Parlami d'amore Mariù" (1932), and "The Last Waltz" (1970). ==Jazz waltzes==