It´s winter time, days are cold. Night is falling in rather quick. It´s the time when the farmers are working inside, producing rakes, baskets and the neat “Simperls” of their own - as long as they can work in the daylight. There is not as much to do as it is in the other three seasons. It´s time to wait until you can sow again. What we still have to do is to feed the cattle, but generally it´s a little bit calmer now at work. It´s February, the carnival of 1954.
“Advent” was the most silent time of the whole year. For the younger ones it was a very hard time: no “Unterhaltung”, no laughing, no flirting on the “Tanzboden” anymore. Since November 25th, the day of St. Catherine, no public dance had been allowed to be held. Waiting for the birth of Jesus had been taken very serious. “Kathrein sperrt die Geigen ein” - the day of St. Catherine hides the fiddles, no more dancing!
But now Advent is over. Tonight there is a ball in the village. Feuerwehrball! Bring your fiddle, your Steirische Harmonika, and we´ll have a great dance! All the young people from the neighbour villages will also come, maybe to keep an eye on our girls… If they won´t behave like guests should do, we kick them out! Prepare for a rough scuffle!
Well, this is February, 1954...
Tempora mutantur: the times, they are a-changing. 50 years later, a ball in Burgenland is not the same as it has been for such a long time. If you like to go on a dance, you have to pay an entrance fee of about 10 Dollars at least, but this is just the beginning of a very expensive night.
The most beautiful (and biggest) balls in Burgenland are the so-called “Maturabälle”, a sort of high school graduate ball. The boys come in their tuxedos, the girls have their beautiful white evening dress, bought for just one night! Never worn again!
Fiddle and Harmonika do no longer accomplish guest’s wishes. Bands are playing their drums, guitars and keyboards, with up to eight musicians, their instruments plugged, sometimes incredibly loud, you hardly hear your own voice having a nice conversation with somebody you haven´t seen for such a long time.
Those high school balls are the only ones where you can find the young. “Unterhaltung” is nothing special anymore, they can have it twice a week if they want to. Even more often. They also think that dancing is boring - and they just mean the dancing their parents use to practice. Though the young would be talented, of course, they avoid the polka and the waltz. There is no difference anymore between carnival and the Lent, the Advent and any other day in the curriculum of the seasons. So why should young people go to the village dance, like to the Feuerwehrball or any other dance in carnival time, when they use to go out every weekend? What is the very special in today´s balls?
There is none for the young, maybe. But the old, they are still coming to the waltz, to the polka - and to the two-men-band with their Harmonika…

Sincerely

Walter Dujmovits, jr.