Dances from Terpsichore

Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) was primarily a composer of Lutheran church music, but in 1612 he published his Terpsichore, a huge collection of dance pieces, mostly French. It appears that he got most of the tunes from a French dancing master, called Anthoine Emeraud, who was working at Braunschweig (Brunswck) not far from Praetorius' home town of Wolfenbuttel. The collection also contains about 70 dances by Francisque Caroubel, another French dancing master, who visited Wolfenbuttel in 1610. In some cases Praetorius had only the melody, in others the melody and the bass. it is thought that Caroubel supplied all the parts for his pieces. 

Although the dances in Terpsichore are mostly in French, there are quite a few Italian pieces, including one based on Vecchi's So ben chi ha bon tempo, and standards such as the Pavaniglia (Pavane de Spaigne) and Spagnoletta, which presumably originated in Spain, but became standard repertoire in Italy. There is also a handful of English tunes, including the 'Battle Coranto' attributed to John Bull, who was working in Flanders at the time because of his Catholic faith. 

In arranging these dances for soprano recorder and keyboard we have generally reduced the 3 lower parts in Terpischore to two in the right hand. The bass has mostly been kept. In some dances we have provided simple elaborations in the keyboard, to help the music flow. But these arrangements should be seen as a starting point for further elaboration when appropriate: the final bars of many sections could benefit from simple elaboration in the keyboard part. 

All these dances can be found in their full versions in our 6 volumes of Praetorius dances (DM11-16). 

Bernard Thomas

London, 2023

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Dance from Terpischore

1. Bransle de la Royne

2. Pavane de Spaigne

3. La Bouree (XXXII)

4. Spagnoletta

5. La Canarie (XXXI)

6. Branle simple: (La la je ne l'ose dire)

7. Bransle simple 2

8. Bransle Gay 1

9. Bransle Gay 2

10. Bransle de Villages 4

11. Bransle de Villages 5

12. Courante

13. Courante: (Bataille)

14. Courante

15. Courante

16. Courante

17. Courante

18. Courante: La Rosette

19. Courante: (So ben mi ch'ha bn tempo)

20. Ballet

21. Ballet des Baccanales

22. Ballet des feus

23. Ballet des Matelotz

24. Reprinse

25. Passameze II

26. Gaillarde

Score: 30 pages. 1 part @ 11 pages.