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.

Beginning with her childhood discoveries of the worlds of dance and music, continuing through her ballet and historical dance studies in England, and culminating in her distinguished work as a dancer, choreographer, scholar, and teacher in the United States, this memoir traces the fascinating, circuitous path of Wendy Hilton''s remarkable career. Hilton's early aspirations to become a ballerina led her to the ballet studios of Marie Rambert, Cleo Nordi, Audrey de Vos, and Maria Fay and then to dancing in live broadcasts on early British television, in movies, and with the companies of Felicity Grey, Walter Gore, and Letty Littlewood. In 1952, a chance introduction to the historical dance specialist Belinda Quirey began Hilton's lifelong study of and commitment to the fields of early dance and music. A few years later, another chance introduction to the eminent Bach specialist Rosalyn Tureck brought Hilton to America, with their collaborations winning rave reviews from distinguished critics. Hilton went on to collaborate with such other renowned musicians as Michael Tilson Thomas, Albert Fuller, and Frederick Renz, and such early music groups as the New York Pro Musica Antiqua and the Ensemble for Early Music. Two significant academic appointments, both of which would continue for over twenty years, played prominent roles in her career: at the Juilliard School, where, as nowhere else, she mounted gloriously costumed and musically sophisticated performances in the baroque dance style, and at Stanford University, where she directed an annual workshop on baroque dance and music. Hilton's memoir is richly illustrated with 75 photographs by notable dance and theater photographers, including Jack Blake, Frederica Davis, Rebecca Lesher of the Martha Swope Studios, Peter Schaaf, G. B. L. Wilson, and Reg Wilson.

Examines the evolving practices in music, librettos, choreographed dance, and staging throughout the history of French Baroque opera.

A unique study of dance forms and rhythms in the Baroque composer’s repertoire. Stylized dance music and music based on dance rhythms pervade Bach’s compositions. Although the music of this very special genre has long been a part of every serious musician’s repertoire, little has been written about it. The original edition of this book addressed works that bore the names of dances—a considerable corpus. In this expanded version of their practical and insightful study, Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne apply the same principles to the study of a great number of Bach’s works that use identifiable dance rhythms but do not bear dance-specific titles. Part I describes French dance practices in the cities and courts most familiar to Bach. The terminology and analytical tools necessary for discussing dance music of Bach’s time are laid out. Part II presents the dance forms that Bach used, annotating all of his named dances. Little and Jenne draw on choreographies, harmony, theorists’ writings, and the music of many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century composers in order to arrive at a model for each dance type. Additionally, in Appendix A all of Bach’s named dances are listed in convenient tabular form; included are the BWV number for each piece, the date of composition, the larger work in which it appears, the instrumentation, and the meter. Appendix B supplies the same data for pieces recognizable as dance types but not named as such. More than ever, this book will stimulate both the musical scholar and the performer with a new perspective at the rhythmic workings of Bach’s remarkable repertoire of dance-based music.

This collection of selected writings of Ms. Hilton includes a complete facsimile of her 1981 book Dance of Court & Theater (no longer available) as well as two significant articles, and a notated triple-meter danse � deux by LouisP�cour. Book One (the facsimile) provides in-depth analysis of primary sources on dance of the baroque period.The main body of the text is devoted to mastery of the Beauchamp-Feuillet notation system,which includes the relationships of steps to music in such dance types as the menuet,gavotte, bourr�e, sarabande, passacaille, loure, gigue, and entr�e grave. Instruction is also given on style, bows and courtesies, the use of the hat, and the ballroom menuet ordinaire as given by Pierre Rameau.Book Two adds theslow Seventeenth-Century French Courante; A survey of the 56 dances extant to music by J.B. Lully with their airs and some of the more virtuosic, theatrical step-units in notation; Louis P�cour's ballroom dance Aimable Vainqueur (1701 in six pages of dance notation with a five-part score of Andr� Campra's music from Hesione (1700)and an updated bibliography.