courante

views updated Jun 08 2018

courante (Fr.), corrente (It.), coranto, corant. Running. Fr. dance, at height of popularity in 17th cent., which spread to It. The mus. based on it falls into 2 classifications.

(a) It. variety, in a rapid tempo and in simple triple time. (b) Fr. variety, similar to the above, but with a mixture of simple triple and compound duple rhythms, the latter pertaining especially to the end of each of the 2 sections. Occasionally in Bach's kbd. examples the conflicting rhythms are found together, one in each hand.

In classical suite the courante followed the allemande (see pavan and galliard). Occasionally it was, in turn, followed by ‘Doubles’, i.e. variations on itself.