Dance Rhythms of the French Baroque: A Handbook for Performance

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Hardcover. VG/VG (Ex-library with stamps and labels on spine, inside front and rear covers, ffep and block.). Purple cloth boards with gilt spine lettering; purple illustrated dj, mylar cover; xiv, 334 pp; bw illustrations and music. "Dance Music of the French Baroque brings together information on rhythm from the interrelated fields of music, dance, poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. Part I is devoted to the various factors involved in dance rhythms, including tempos, rhythmic feet, dance steps, declamation of lyrics, instrumental articulation, and performance of ornaments. Part II describes in alphabetic order the fifteen most frequently encountered dances of the period and identifies the most typical performance of each in relation to the factors discussed in Part I. With reference to numerous illustrations and musical examples, it clearly conveys the manner in which the allemandes, bourées, chaconnes, gigues, etc., may be executed. This practical book presents a myriad of information in a form that is easy to use yet as graceful as the dances it describes."-DJ. Contents: Preface -- Introduction -- Prologue : The king's grand ball -- Part 1 : Features of the dance rhythms -- Reason and the passions -- Arbeau's dance rhythms -- Dance rhythms from early guitar sources -- Rhythmic movements in mersenne's and later dance music -- The musical measure -- Correspondence of melodic and poetic rhythms in Lullian dance songs -- Rhetorical proportions -- Step-units of la belle danse -- Symmetrical, poetic and rhetorical proportions of labelle danse -- Tempos and general Affects -- Marking the musical meter -- Lullian bowing of dance rhythms -- Forceful articulation of Lullian dance lyrics -- Articulation of dance rhythms in concert pieces -- Ornamenting dance rhythms -- Grouping unslurred quick notes -- Summing up : the many aspects of movement -- Part 2 : Rhythmic characteristics of fifteen dance types -- Allemandes -- Bourrées -- Canaries -- Chaconnes -- Courantes -- Folies -- Forlanes -- Gavottes -- Gigues -- Loures -- Menuets -- Passacailles -- Passepieds -- Rigaudons -- Sarabandes -- Appendix : Six complete dance songs.