Gilded Age Ball and Music Etiquette

At fashionable private balls in New York houses, an orchestra of stringed instruments, or one of the famous Hungarian bands, discourses sweet music for the entire evening from behind a screen of palms and tropical plants. – Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa/Courtesy of HBO via X / Twitter

It is no longer the fashion to have a formal opening, a “Grand March,” or anything of that sort for balls given in private houses or even in halls or assembly rooms, except in the case of a few functions given by clubs and military organizations. The dancing begins as soon as half a dozen or so couples have arrived. 

Naturally, the bigger the ball the larger the orchestra engaged to play for the festivities. At fashionable private balls in New York houses, an orchestra of stringed instruments, or one of the famous Hungarian bands, discourses sweet music for the entire evening from behind a screen of palms and tropical plants. For a smaller dance an orchestra of three or four pieces is all that is necessary, while for informal affairs and small country dances the piano alone can be made to suffice. 

The waltz and the two-step, varied by an occasional set of lancers and the cotillion, sometimes called the german, are about all the dances that society cares to indulge in at present. When the cotillion is danced it usually begins directly after supper, unless the entire evening is to be devoted to it. – Copyright, 1905, by A. S. Barnes & Co.

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia