Courantes

Courantes, also known as courante (French) or corrente (Italian), are related Renaissance and Baroque dance forms in triple meter associated with courtly dances and instrumental suites. The name derives from the French courir and Italian corrente, meaning “to run,” reflecting the brisk, flowing character of the music.

Two main traditions developed. The Italian corrente emerged in the late Renaissance and early Baroque as a lively, rapid dance often in 3/2 or 3/4 time, featuring swift running passages. The French courante, developed from the Italian model in the 17th century, became a standard movement in the Baroque instrumental suite. It is typically in 3/2 or 6/4, and is noted for a light, courtly style and for a rhythmic hemiola—shifting accents between groups of two and three, especially across barlines. In French practice, composers sometimes wrote both a simpler courante (courante simple) and an elaborated version (courante double).

In the Baroque suite, courantes appear alongside allemande, sarabande, gigue, and other dances; composers such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, François Couperin, and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote extensively in these forms. In modern musicology, the courante is studied as a term for a family of dance-inspired keyboard and orchestral pieces, often described in movement terms rather than as a standalone genre.