courante

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The courante, corrente, coranto and corant are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era.

Modern usage will sometimes use the different spellings to distinguish types of courante (Italian spelling for the Italian dance, etc.), but in the original sources spellings were inconsistent. (In the Partitas of the Clavierübung, Bach use the different spellings courante and corrente to differentiate between the French and Italian styles, respectively.)^[1] However, in Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach by Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne, the courante and corrente are given separate chapters and treated as distinct dances.^[2] The courante had the slowest tempo of all French court dances, and was described by Mattheson, Quantz and Rousseau as grave and majestic,^[3] whilst the corrente may be fluid and virtuosic.^{[citation needed]} In Bach's unaccompanied Partita for Violin No. 2 the first movement (titled Allemanda) begins as if in 3/4 time in a manner one might initially perform and hear as a courante. The second movement is titled corrente and is rather lively. This may reflect a performance practice in which the second of paired courantes is played faster than the first.^{[citation needed]} On the other hand, many "courante" movements by Bach are actually correntes as well: in the original engraving of the keyboard Partitas, movements are clearly labelled either "corrente" or "courante", but editors have frequently ignored the distinction.^[4] The English translation commonly describes the "rapid tempo of courrantes"^{[citation needed]} but the literal meaning of both German and French text is of fast notes and dance steps and not tempo.^{[citation needed]}

Courante literally means running, and in the later Renaissance the courante was danced with fast running and jumping steps, as described by Thoinot Arbeau. These steps are sometimes thought to be broken up by hops between the steps, but this is not necessarily supported by Arbeau's confusing and contradictory instructions, which described each "saut" as resulting in the completion of a new foot placement.^{[cite this quote]}

In Der vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739), Johann Mattheson wrote that, "The motion of a courante is chiefly characterized by the passion or mood of sweet expectation. For there is something heartfelt, something longing and also gratifying, in this melody: clearly music on which hopes are built."^[5]

The courante was most commonly used in the baroque period. During this period, there were two types of courante: French and Italian. The French type had many cross-accents and was a moderately fast dance,^{[citation needed]} in contrast to the allemande that preceded it. The Italian courante was faster, more free-flowing and running, however, it is not clear whether this is significantly different from the French Renaissance courante that Arbeau describes.^{[citation needed]} In a Baroque dance suite, an Italian or French courante typically comes between the allemande and the sarabande, making it the second or third movement. The French type is usually notated in 3/2 or 6/4, occasionally alternating between the two meters, and is typically performed at a fairly moderate tempo^{[citation needed]}; the Italian type, on the other hand, is a significantly faster dance. In the Musicalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1732), Johann Gottfried Walther wrote that the rhythm of the courante is "absolutely the most serious one can find."^[6]

See also

• Renaissance dance
• Baroque dance

References

Further reading

• Lenneberg, Hans. 1958. "Johann Mattheson on Affect and Rhetoric in Music: A Translation of Selected Portions of Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739)". Journal of Music Theory 2, no. 1 (April) and no. 2 (November): 47–84, 193–236.
• Mattheson, Johann. 1739. Der vollkommene Capellmeister: Das ist, Gründliche Anzeige aller derjenigen Sachen, die einer wissen, können, und vollkommen inne haben muß, der einer Capelle mit Ehren und Nutzen vorstehen will. Hamburg: verlegts Christian Herold. Facsimile reprint, fifth edition, edited by Margarete Reimann. Documenta Musicologica 1. Reihe, Druckschriften-Faksimiles 5. Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 1991. ISBN 978-3-7618-0100-0.
• Mattheson, Johann. 1981. Johann Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister", a revised translation with critical commentary by Ernest Charles Harriss. Studies in musicology 21. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. ISBN 083571134X.
• Walther, Johann Gottfried. 1732. Musicalisches Lexicon oder, Musicalische Bibliothec. Leipzig: verlegts Wolffgang Deer. Facsimile reprint, edited by Richard Schaal. Documenta musicologica, 1. Reihe, Druckschriften-Faksimiles, 3. Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 1953. Modern edition of the text and musical illustrations, edited by Friederike Ramm. Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag & Karl Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG, 2001. ISBN 3761815093.

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