1827—Munich, Germany

British traveler Edward Holmes attends a ballet by “Cramer of Manheim,” where he is disturbed by the orchestra’s performance: “There is something certainly absurd and contemptible in employing impassioned melodies, full of meaning and tenderness, to accompany balancing and feet-twirling; and it becomes very ludicrous when, to a solemn blast of trombones and horns, such as might prepare us to wait in silent dread the sentence of an oracle, the dancer, for some mysterious and inscrutable purpose, slowly and deliberately raises her limb to an altitude as little consistent with grace as dignity” (Holmes 70-71).