In this chapter a method of ‘somatic enquiry’ is put forward, which demonstrates ways in which the bodily knowledge of the minuet might inform analytical approaches to this repertoire. Drawing on other contributions to the field of somatic studies by scholars such as Suzanne Ravn and Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, it demonstrates ways in which the sensation of dancing informs my perception of the musical sounds, and conversely how the sounds affect my body’s kinaesthetic sensations. Taking Elisabeth Le Guin’s similar exploration of Boccherini’s body as a model, it considers challenges faced by any attempts to grapple with bodily knowledge. It builds on Christopher Hasty’s notion of projection, or ‘throwing forth’, in his theory of metre, arguing that to dance is a physical throwing forth of one’s body. The method of somatic enquiry is illustrated through detailed accounts of dancing to movements from Haydn’s Minuets Hoboken IX:11, composed in 1792 for the first annual ball of the Gesellschaft bildender Künstler at the Hofburg Redoutensaal. Ultimately, it argues that musical listening (even when seated) is a more active bodily experience than is typically recognised, even when one’s awareness of this activity is limited.

This chapter turns to the concert minuet, asking how somatic knowledge of the minuet dance informs engagement with and understanding of this genre. The chapter begins with writings that show eighteenth-century listeners discussing concert minuets in relation to the minuet dance step, as well as eighteenth-century music-theoretical discussions of minuet composition that put forward a view of the concert minuet as the nonconformist version of the dance minuet. Two case studies discuss minuets from Haydn’s ‘London’ Symphonies – Nos. 97 and 102 – which were written around the same period as the dance minuets discussed in the previous chapter, and were also performed in Vienna in the 1790s. These case studies show ways in which Haydn plays with expectations formed by the dance minuet: he subverts the structural norms of minuet composition, as well as manipulating one’s feeling of the dance step. The argument is made that, while traditional forms of analysis tend to seek subversion of expectations as a feature for explication, minuets and somatic enquiry invite us to see artfulness through a different lens.