Minuets

A minuet (/ˌmɪnjuːˈɛt/; also spelled menuet), is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3
4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, possibly from the French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular group dances called branle à mener or amener.

The term also describes the musical style that accompanies the dance, which subsequently developed more fully, often with a longer musical form called the minuet and trio, and was much used as a movement in the early classical symphony.

The name may refer to the short steps, pas menus, taken in the dance, or else be derived from the branle à mener or amener, popular group dances in early 17th-century France (Little 2001). The minuet was traditionally said to have descended from the bransle de Poitou, though there is no evidence making a clear connection between these two dances. The earliest treatise to mention the possible connection of the name to the expression pas menus is Gottfried Taubert's Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister, published in Leipzig in 1717, but this source does not describe the steps as being particularly small or dainty (Russell 2006, 140–41). At the period when it was most fashionable it was controlled, ceremonious and graceful.

The name is also given to a musical composition written in the same time and rhythm, though when not accompanying an actual dance the pace was quicker. Stylistically refined minuets, apart from the social dance context, were introduced—to opera at first—by Jean-Baptiste Lully, who included no fewer than 92 of them in his theatrical works (Little 2001) and in the late 17th century the minuet was adopted into the suite, such as some of the suites of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Händel. Among Italian composers the minuet was often considerably quicker and livelier and was sometimes written in 3
8 or 6
8 time. Because the tempo of a minuet was not standard, the tempo direction tempo di minuetto was ambiguous unless qualified by another direction, as it sometimes was (Russell 2001).

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