Rhythmic distortion in Viennese waltzes

Can anyone comment on the deliberate rhythmic distortion commonly heard in Viennese waltzes? I find it highly disturbing. The image attached is an attempt to describe this curiousity. The first line is what should be the waltz 3/4 metre, but the second line is what you seem to hear in execution.

Well, the example you posted seems a bit extreme. Usually the second beat comes a bit early, but sometimes only a tiny bit. The third beat in your example seems very unusual though. It's alot more common for the third beat to come a bit late, and not like in your example early (especially not -that- early). The significant thing is that the second beat is made longer, be that by having it start sooner, end later, or both.

I've always loved this about the Viennese waltzes. They are usually harmonically extremely simple, but this adds some finesse to them that actually makes them come to life. I just hate it when someone plays these waltzes in a straight 3/4 like a machine.

An interesting thing about this is also that it brings the Viennese waltzes curiously close to some Latin american dances, if you do these rhythmical shifts strongly - since also the harmonical progressions are sometimes similar in those dances. Just the instrumentation is a lot different, of course.

Traditional "western" music often can be read as rather rhythmically simplicistic and uninventive, but little things like this show us that this is mostly a matter of notation. In musical practice it was always customary not to play everything just on time, from baroque "notes in

The waltzes are not meant to be played straight. Later music has the rhythm clarified as the second example you posted, which is now often referred to as one type of "jazz waltz". (the other, more common type being a combination of the two, except with the second offbeat on 3 instead of 2.5)

There's nothing more dreadfully boring than waltzes played like your first example.

Nooooo I want my metronomic waltzessss!!!!

LOl - thanks for the explanations guys. Is there a specific musical terminology for this rhythmic 'distortion'? I would bet the Germans have one stowed away.

I don't think there's a specific term, but in practice it's an extension of the "unequal notes" that Gardener was referring to.