courante

Courante comes from the French verb courir, meaning to run. The dance was running — quick, light steps in triple time. It appeared in French court records by the mid-sixteenth century as a lively dance featuring hops and jumps. The Italian version, corrente, was faster and simpler. The French version was slower, more restrained, and more technically demanding. This difference tells you everything about the two cultures' approach to dance.

Louis XIV danced the courante at court events throughout the 1650s and 1660s. He was trained by Pierre Beauchamp, who also codified the five basic positions of ballet. When the king danced a courante, every courtier watched and learned, because the king's preferences became the court's requirements. Refusing to dance the courante was tantamount to refusing to participate in court life. The running dance became a political obligation.

The courante entered the Baroque suite as a standard movement — after the allemande and before the sarabande. J.S. Bach wrote courantes for his keyboard suites, cello suites, and orchestral suites. The dance movement outlived the dance itself: by the mid-eighteenth century, no one danced the courante anymore, but composers continued writing them as abstract musical forms. The running stopped. The music kept going.

The courante is now an exclusively musical term. Harpsichordists, cellists, and pianists play Bach's courantes without any thought of choreography. The word that meant running — that described bodies moving quickly across a polished floor — now describes a tempo marking in a music score. The dancers left. The rhythm stayed.