The ländler is a folk dance in 3/4 time which was popular in Austria, south Germany and German Switzerland at the end of the 18th century.
It is a dance for couples which strongly features hopping and stamping. It was sometimes purely instrumental and sometimes had a vocal part, sometimes featuring yodelling.
When dance halls became popular in Europe in the 19th century, the ländler was made quicker and more elegant, and the men shed the hobnail boots which they wore to dance it. Along with a number of other folk dances from Germany and Bohemia, it is thought to have contributed to the evolution of the waltz.
A number of classical composers wrote or included ländler in their music, including Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert and Anton Bruckner. In several of his symphonies Gustav Mahler replaced the scherzo with a ländler. The Carinthian folk tune quoted in Alban Berg's Violin Concerto is a ländler, and another features in Act II of his opera Wozzeck. The "German Dances" of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn also resemble ländler. Britten's Peter Grimes features a Ländler in the scene where a dance night is occurring in the Hall.
The movie The Sound of Music features a scene where the protagonists Maria and Captain von Trapp dance a ländler; however, it is not a traditional but a choreographed form. The instrumental tune used in that sequence is a slowed-down re-arrangement of a song heard earlier in the film, The Lonely Goatherd.
