Lesson 32: Baroque Dance Forms
- Recognise four Baroque dance forms by their tempo, meter, and characteristic rhythm.
- Play one piece in each form.
- Lessons 23–24 — 3/4 and 6/8.
- Allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue.
- Dance-suite architecture.
- Baroque social-dance affect.
A Baroque suite is not a collection of pieces. It is one dance after another.
The Baroque suite — allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue, with optional inserted dances — was the standard multi-movement form before the sonata took over. Each movement was a dance, and even when they ceased to be danced to literally, the rhythmic character of the dance is what gives the music its identity. Play a sarabande as a march and it ceases to be a sarabande.
Allemande — 4/4, moderate, with anacrusis
German origin. A steady walking dance. Always begins with a short upbeat — usually a sixteenth or three sixteenths leading into the first downbeat.
Courante — 3/4 or 3/2, lively
The Italian corrente is fast and running; the French courante is slower and uses hemiola (a brief two-against-three feel). Either way: in three, energetic.
Sarabande — 3/4, slow, weight on beat 2
You met this in Lesson 23. The Baroque suite's slow movement: dignified, leaning, often the emotional core of the suite.
Gigue — 6/8 or 12/8, fast
The dance the Baroque suite ended on. Compound meter, fast tempo, often with contrapuntal entries.
Now play these
- Bourrée
- Another Baroque dance form — bright, duple-meter, leaning quarter notes.
- Gavotte
- 4/4 with phrase upbeats on beat 3 — the gavotte's signature.
- Gigue
- A short gigue, fast and lilting.
- Pavane
- The Renaissance ancestor of the slow Baroque dances.
When you can identify a Baroque dance type by listening to its first bar — and play it so a listener can identify it too — move on to Lesson 33.