minuet

1. A slow, stately pattern dance in 3/4 time for groups of couples, originating in 17th-century France.
2. The music for or in the rhythm of the minuet.
3. A movement in 3/4 time that is usually the third, but sometimes the second, of a four-movement symphony or string quartet.

[French menuet, from Old French, small, dainty (from the small steps characteristic of the dance), diminutive of menu, small, from Latin minūtus. See minute².]

(Fr. menuet ; Ger. Menuett ; It. minuetto)

A dance, of French origin, in a moderate triple metre. It was known at Louis XIV's court as an elegant social dance performed by one couple at a time, and remained the most popular dance among the European aristocracy until the late 18th century. Lully introduced numerous minuets into his operas and ballets and the dance was frequently included in Baroque keyboard and ensemble suites. Italian minuets, often in 3/8 or 6/8 time, were faster.

The minuet was the only important dance to survive into the Classical period. Italian opera overtures of the early 18th century often close with a minuet, as do many symphonies by G. B. Sammartini, Abel, J. W. Stamitz and Monn and some early piano sonatas by Haydn. After about 1770 the ternary minuet-trio-minuet (da capo), derived from the Baroque practice of playing two minuets ‘alternativement’, became the standard third (occasionally second) of four movements in symphonies and string quartets. Haydn was the first to substitute movements called ‘scherzo’ for minuets (in his string quartets op.33) and Beethoven preferred vigorous and robust scherzos in the standard minuet and trio layout, sometimes extended to include a repeat of the trio and a second repeat of the scherzo.

19th-century composers were less interested in the minuet, but some 20th-century composers, including Françaix, Bartók, Schoenberg and Ravel, have revived it for its associations with the past.

For more information on minuet, visit Britannica.com.

The name derives from the French pas menu, or small step. It was probably originally a peasant dance from the Poitou region of France before becoming fashionable as a court dance under Louis XIV. Its popularity among the aristocracy spread far outside France. A dance in triple time, it is highly dignified and leisurely in execution with many curtseys and deep bows.

For other uses, see Minuet (disambiguation).

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Minuet.

A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two persons, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, meaning small, pretty, delicate, a diminutive of menu, from the Latin minutus; menuetto is a word that occurs only on musical scores. The name may refer to the short steps, pas menus, taken in the dance, or else be derived from the branle à mener or amener, popular group dances in early 17th-century France (Little 2001). At the period when it was most fashionable it was slow, soft, ceremonious, and graceful.

The name is also given to a musical composition written in the same time and rhythm, but when not accompanying an actual dance the pace was quicker. Stylistically refined minuets, apart from the social dance context, were introduced — to opera at first — by Jean-Baptiste Lully, and in the late 17th century the minuet was adopted into the suite, such as some of the suites of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Händel. As the other dances that made up a Baroque suite dropped out of use, the minuet retained its popularity. Among Italian composers, the minuet was often considerably quicker and livelier, and was sometimes written in 3/8 or 6/8 time. A minuet was often used as the final movement in an Italian overture. Initially, before its adoption in contexts other than social dance, the minuet was usually in binary form, with two sections of usually eight bars each, but the second section eventually expanded, resulting in a kind of ternary form. On a larger scale, two such minuets were often combined, so that the first minuet was followed by a second one, and finally by a repetition of the first. The second (or middle) minuet usually provided some form of contrast, by means of different key and orchestration. Around Lully's time, it became a common practice to score this section for a trio (such as two oboes and a bassoon, as is common in Lully). As a result, this middle section came to be called trio, even when no trace of such an orchestration remains.

The minuet and trio eventually became the standard third movement in the four-movement classical symphony, Johann Stamitz being the first to employ it thus with regularity. A livelier form of the minuet later developed into the scherzo (which was generally also coupled with a trio). This term came into existence approximately from Beethoven onwards, but the form itself can be traced back to Haydn. An example of the true form of the minuet is to be found in Don Giovanni.

The minuet also remained in some countries as elements in folk dance, such as in Finland and parts of Sweden.

See also

• Minuet step, a description of the basic step of the dance

References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• Little, Meredith Ellis. 2001. "Minuet". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. New York: Grove's Dictionaries.

External links

• Example of a Minuet Choroegraphy: "Menuet à deux pour un homme et une femme", Raoul Auger Feuillet: Recueil de Dances (1704)

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - menuet
v. intr. - danse menuet

Nederlands (Dutch)
menuet

Français (French)
n. - menuet
v. intr. - danser le menuet

Deutsch (German)
n. - Menuett
v. - ein Menuett tanzen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (μουσ.) μενουέτο

Italiano (Italian)
minuetto

Português (Portuguese)
n. - minueto (m)

Русский (Russian)
менуэт

Español (Spanish)
n. - minué
v. intr. - bailar el minué

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - menuett

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
小步舞, 小步舞曲, 跳小步舞

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 小步舞, 小步舞曲
v. intr. - 跳小步舞

한국어 (Korean)
n. - (3박자의 춤곡) 미뉴에트
v. intr. - 미뉴에트에 맞추어 춤을 추다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - メヌエット, メヌエット舞曲

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) رقصه فرنسيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מינואט (מחול אטי), מוסיקה למינואט‬
v. intr. - ‮רקד/ה מינואט‬

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