Franz Hünten (aka François Hünten) published a Premier Quadrille de contredanses variées, suivi d'un galop as his Opus 63. The date is about 1834; a facsimile is available on IMSLP, as a digital copy of the facsimile published in an anthology by Garland about twenty years ago.

The work contains the usual five numbers of the quadrille as they were standardized in the early 19th century, plus a specific genre dance appended, as was the custom in published quadrilles at least through mid-century. In this case it's a galop; it might also have been a waltz or, after 1840, a polka.

The interesting feature of Hünten's quadrille is that the alternate strains in all five numbers are varied when repeated but the refrain (first strain) is not. The design of each number is ABACABACA. This provides 72 bars of music for the dance, or 8 for the promenade and 64 for the figures. See the graphic below for incipits of the refrain, B, C, and the variants of B & C.

I suspect that the composer is duplicating a common practice of performers (most often pianists) in house balls and similar dancing occasions (as with the post-Schubertiade dancing of Schubert's friends, for example). The unembellished refrain provides a stable guidepost for the design -- and therefore for the dancing -- while the variations on the alternate strains not only provide additional contrast with the refrain but also reflect what a creative (or bored) pianist very probably did in the course of dancing that could go on for a half hour to an hour at a time.

performance designs for dances

It is important to understand that there is no such thing as a single, fixed form for the performance of a series of dances -- indeed, not even a fixed context or environment. This fluidity or variability is reflected in the following (repeated from an earlier post):

A reminiscence by Ludwig August Frankl describes an occasion where Schubert "had a great triumph. A large company was there, including the Duke of Reichstadt. [Schubert] sang and played his things. They got ready for dancing, whereupon he played and improvised waltzes; they listened, asked him to go on playing, completely forgot the dancing and so it went on till long after midnight. They departed enraptured, he likewise, the triumph had delighted him" (Deutsch, 265)

All that having been said, here are typical designs for dance performances, all but the first being appropriate either to dancing or listening.

1. the "jewel" -- a single dance performed on its own for listening.

2. dance-trio (ABA). Very common, of course, in sonatas and symphonies. In J. N. Hummel, Tänze, op. 39, Menuets 1, 3-6. Scanned first editions are available through IMSLP. In Schubert: each of the numbers in 20 Menuets, D41; D139; D146nn1, 4-11, 20; D334; D336; D769?

3. alternativo (ABAB). Of his Deutsche Tänze, K. 509, Mozart said: "Each German dance has its trio or rather 'alternativo' - after the 'alternativo' the dance is repeated, then comes the 'alternativo' again; it then goes via the introduction into the next dance." [note 19 June 2017: I adopted Mozart's meaning of alternativo, but have recently discovered that the term was generally used throughout the 18th century to refer to what we call trios nowadays. I like Mozart's use, though, and will continue applying the term specifically to the ABAB performance strategy.]

4. double trio (ABABA or ABACA). In Hummel, Tänze, op. 39, Menuet 2. In Schubert: each of the numbers in D91; D146n3; D335; D380nn1, 2.

5. extended trio design (ABACADA...). In Hummel, Tänze, op. 39, Deutscher 1 (4 trios), 2 (5 trios), 3 (4 trios), 4 (3 trios, the last being a vocal number). In Schubert: any number of these groupings may be embedded in the larger collections (Neumeyer 1997, 2006, and citations there).

6. extended trio design with reprises and also recurrent trios (ABACABA or ABACADABA, etc.). See the note to item 5 above.

7. extended trio design with multiple dance- trio segments (ABACDC . . . or ABACADCEC . . ., etc.). See the note to item 5 above.

8. fixed chain designs, such as the quadrille (ABCDE-[coda] or ABCDEF-[coda]).

9. extended but informal chain designs, such as the Ländler sequence or Lanner/Strauss waltz set (often as introduction-ABCDE-coda or introduction-ABCDEF-coda). In Schubert: possibly the 12 Wiener Deutsche, D128 (because of its introduction and plausible key sequence); also see the note to item 5 above.

10. "free" chains of dances, wholly informal or organized by the dancers as a cotillon. In this case the design of the dance would be under the control of the lead dancer or caller (Vortanzer), but Schubert would still have considerable -- if not complete -- control over the music. See this subsequent post on the topic. Also see the note to item 5 above.

References.

Deutsch, Otto. Rosamond Ley and John Nowell. trans. Schubert: Memoirs by His Friends. London: A. & C. Black, 1958.

Neumeyer, David. "Synthesis and Association, Structure and Design, in Multi-Movement Compositions." In Music Theory in Concept and Practice. Edited by David Beach, James Baker, and Jonathan Bernard. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press: 1997), 197-216.

Neumeyer, David. "Description and Interpretation: Fred Lerdahl's Tonal Pitch Space and Linear Analysis." Review-article. Music Analysis 25/1-2 (2006): 201-30.