courante

Courante is the name of a dance that originated in the late Renaissance and became a standard movement in Baroque instrumental suites. The word derives from the French courante, meaning running or flowing, a reference to the brisk movement of the dance.

There are two principal traditions. The French courante emerged in French courtly culture. It is typically written in triple meter and presented in an agile, flowing character, often with hemiolas—shifts of metric accent that create a cross rhythm across measures. The Italian corrente (the equivalent term in Italian sources) developed in the Italian Baroque and is usually even brisker and more torrent-like, frequently found in 3/4 or 6/8 time with rapid passagework.

In the context of the Baroque dance suite, the courante is one of a group of stylized dance movements, typically placed after the allemande and before the sarabande. It was used by composers across France, Germany, and Italy, including Bach, Couperin, and Handel, among others. The form helped showcase a player’s technical facility as well as expressive rhythm.

Modern usage of the term occasionally refers to the general sense of a fast, flowing movement even outside strict dance manuscripts, but in musicology the courante remains chiefly a historical dance form associated with Baroque instrumental suites.