The dance steps of the minuet, perfected over decades, demonstrate the gallantry of the gentlemen and the charm of the ladies. After all, the minuet is a dance worthy of kings.

The term "minuet" comes from the French menu pas - small step. This ancient folk dance originates from the amener round dance, which was popular in the 15th century in the province of Poitou. And the basis of the minuet is made up of small steps, small dance steps, which led to the corresponding name.

History of origin

The minuet has a glorious history that few dances have. It is called "the king of dances and the dance of kings." The brilliant Louis XIV, the Sun King, considered this dance worthy of its greatness. The legendary Peter I did not neglect the minuet at his assemblies. And today in dance and musical art The minuet form has not been forgotten and continues to bring pleasure to dancers and spectators.

The minuet flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries. Its homeland is considered to be Brittany, where the minuet arose as a folk dance, closely related to song and musical culture this area, its way of life and traditions. The simplicity of the dance, its elegance and grace contributed to the rapid spread of the minuet throughout France, including in court circles.

The minuet received particular honor during the reign of King Louis XIV. The Sun King loved to enjoy life, spending time in entertainment, balls and hunting. In 1650, the minuet became the leading dance of the French court. It is interesting that a member of the French Royal Academy of Dance, François-Robert Marcel, resigned from the Paris Opera specifically in order to teach the minuet to people close to the court.

The fashion for “everything French” led to the rapid spread of the minuet in other countries. The dance entered Russia during the reign of Peter I and took pride of place among ballroom dances until the 30s of the 19th century.

Now the minuet is like social dance, has lost its relevance, giving way to other forms and rhythms, but as a cultural phenomenon it continues to delight with graceful dance figures and musical images.

What is a minuet?

The musical size of the minuet is three-beat: 3/4, 6/8. At first the dance was performed by one couple, and then by several. The arrangement of dancers at court balls was strictly based on rank: the first persons of the court - the king and queen - began the procession. Behind them came the Dauphin with a noble lady of the court, and behind them the rest of the guests. The tempo of the minuet is unhurried, the movements are important, majestic, built on curtsies and bows, which created the impression not so much of a dance, but rather an invitation to dance. The minuet included numerous ceremonial passages forward, backward, sideways, and ceremonial greetings. Despite the apparent simplicity of the movements, learning to dance took a long time, since it was necessary to thoroughly master the technique of performance. The dancers moved according to a strictly defined pattern in the form of the numbers 2, 8 or the letters S and Z.

In the 18th century, with the heyday of the Baroque style, the minuet acquired features of mannerism, affectation, and pretentiousness. The pace of the dance accelerated, the figures became more complex, and the story line. The minuet developed into a stage dance and began to be actively used in ballet and opera productions.

Features of the minuet

The peculiarity of the minuet is its grace and elegance. Performers had to work on the plasticity of movements, smooth transitions from pose to pose. Special attention the softness of the hands was paid to: the bends of the hands completed the dance poses, the joining of the partners’ hands was carried out smoothly, the elbows should not be raised too high.

The gentleman's part was especially difficult: it involved manipulating a hat. The gentleman had to elegantly remove his hat, beautifully transfer it from hand to hand, and beautifully put it on again. The lush outfits of the dancers suggested slow, solemn movements. The gentleman had to demonstrate in every possible way deference and respect for the lady.

The grace and elegance of the minuet contributed to its longevity. Many dances that appeared simultaneously with him have sunk into oblivion. And the beautiful, majestic minuet has delighted more than one generation of people to this day.

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Meaning of the word minuet

minuet in the crossword dictionary

minuet

Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, Dal Vladimir

minuet

m. French outdated dance.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov

minuet

minuet, m. (French menuet). An ancient French dance, graceful and smooth.

Form piece of music with the rhythm of a minuet (music).

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I.Ozhegov, N.Yu.Shvedova.

minuet

A, m. Ancient French folk and ballroom dance, as well as music in the rhythm of this dance.

adj. minuet, -aya, -oe.

New explanatory and word-formative dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.

minuet

An ancient French ballroom dance characterized by smooth and slow movements and consisting mainly of bows and curtsies.

Music for this dance.

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

minuet

MENUET (French menuet, from menu - small) is an ancient French folk dance, from the middle. 17th century ballroom. Spread in Europe. Musical time signature: 3/4.

Minuet

(French menuet, from menu ≈ small, small), French dance. Derived from folk dance province of Poitou. From the 2nd half of the 17th century. becomes a court dance, then spreads throughout Europe as a ballroom dance (in Russia it appeared at the assemblies of Peter I). M. was performed smoothly, solemnly, the movements were based mainly on bows and curtsies. Musical time signature: 3/4. Throughout the 18th century. The dance changes: the tempo accelerates, the movements become more complex, and the dance takes on the features of cutesy sophistication. Early examples of music are found in the operas and ballets of J. B. Lully, in the keyboard music of F. Couperin and others, in the overtures to the oratorios of G. F. Handel, in his orchestral and instrumental suites, as well as in J. S. Bach. W. A. Mozart introduced traits of lyricism and courageous energy into M. Gradually M. turns into a scherzo (finally by L. Beethoven), by the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. is rare (in C. Debussy, M. Ravel, G. Fauré, P. I. Tchaikovsky, S. S. Prokofiev, etc.).

S. P. Pankratov.

Wikipedia

Minuet

Minuet- an ancient folk French graceful dance, so named due to its small steps on low half-toes, on the menu ( pas menus). Derived from the slow folk round dance (so-called menuet de la chaîne) of the province of Poitou. It is written in a two-leg fold, in a three-part size (3/4). From the middle of the 17th century - ballroom. Since the 17th century it has spread widely throughout Europe.

Examples of the use of the word minuet in literature.

Antiphonal singing, choir divided in two, minuet, parties or votes in musical ensemble, as well as games that are so important from the point of view of ethnology, when they take away a certain trophy from each other - all these are examples of antithetical games that do not have to be completely agonistic, although the element of competition is very often present there.

She just changed her dresses and wet shirts, dried herself off with fragrant vodka, and again, thinner, taller, all soaked in music, proudly bowed to minuet, spinning like mad in Polish.

Dance this one minuet meant, in local expression, to dance last time jig on a hanging rope.

Bach supplemented the traditional components of the suite with the development of gavotte themes, minuet, polonaise, ancient French dances paspier and bourre, Slavic-Italian dance forlan.

Look how charmingly he moves in minuet Princess Lopukhova is like Countess Golovkina, who is skilled in contradance, and he keeps chattering and looking around boredly.

How is it, our devil, who lives in straw, in barns, and in bathhouses on shelves, to minuet yes you will teach country dance!

And sounds minuet came, like shepherd's flutes and violdamurs from the kingdom of Venus, with a languid chant: Leave, Cupid, the arrows: We are all no longer whole, But sweetly wounded by Your golden arrow of love, We are all subjugated to Love.

On an ornate under-mirror table, under a glass cover, a group of porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses froze in a curtsey. minuet.

Minuets rapture, the tart taste of enlightenment, shame, fear of emptiness and the hatefulness of returning.

In addition to opera, fight songs and several romances, the main part of his small heritage consists of piano pieces: Polish dances - polonaises and mazurkas, as well as marches, minuets, waltzes.

Minuets, ecosses, polonaises, landlers, polkas, gallops - this is the range of dance genres, but waltzes rise above everything - no longer just dances, but rather lyrical miniatures.

At that time, young people were still forbidden to dance bourgeois dances, and only folk, beautiful, graceful, patriotic eco-sessions were allowed, minuets, pas de patenaires, waltzes-gavottes.

In essence it was minuet, which in the old days was danced by emperors and kings, but the automobile king was an American and therefore danced it in the American way.

Because - believe me, Gero, matchmaking, wedding and repentance - it’s like a Scottish jig, minuet and syncpes.

Here the wines are entirely amber, fading cadences of mellifluous melodies, proud minuet, kind ladies flirting from their balconies with smacking lips, girls rotten with syphilis and young gossips who, cheerfully surrendering to their rapists, hug and hug them again.

Among the various dances that were popular in previous eras, the minuet occupies a special place. This famous dance The modern era appeared at the French court around the 16th century.

The name of the dance comes from the French words menu (“step”, “small step”) or amener (an old French dance). Minuet for a long time was the main court dance, although initially it was considered a rural dance. During its peak, the minuet became a high example of court ballet.

Dance technique

. The minuet is characterized by a three-part meter and a moderate tempo. Although there were many varieties of this beautiful dance, general idea it was described as a sedate, graceful, gallant and solemn dance. Almost always the minuet was the pearl of the balls. The dance is characterized by such features as ceremonial passages forward, backward and sideways, small graceful steps (pas), ceremonial bows, and easy gliding. An important element of the minuet is a kind of hint of a bow to the audience.

Approximate manner of performing a minuet.

To give you a better idea of the graceful technique of this dance, we will describe the beat-by-beat scheme of the minuet. On the first beat, the gentleman offers his right hand, the lady accepts it with hers right hand. Next four measures goes long balance minuet. All this time, the gentleman is leading the lady, the free hands of the dancers are slightly to the side and behind. Then on the first beat the lady removes her hand, on the next beat the gentleman removes his hand. Then the pattern is repeated, only with a change of hands - now the left hands of the dancers are in action. This is just one of the elements of the minuet. Of course, there are many others, for example, the “clock” - the simultaneous rotation of both dancers around their axis in four basic steps.

Minuet today.

The minuet has not disappeared since dance floors. Nowadays, this is a graceful, sedate dance that has many fans. The main thing in modern minuet- this is grace of movement and exceptional gallantry. Thus, from the royal balls, the minuet has majestically reached our times, without losing its unique movements and manner of performance.

MINUET

(French menuet, from menu - small, small) - French dance. time signature 3/4. originated from the folk round dance of the Poitou province. at the end of the 17th century. became one of the main ballroom dances of court circles; entered opera and ballet performances.

Dictionary of musical terms. 2012

The birth of the genre

The minuet's birthplace is considered to be the historical region. There it existed along with others, which, however, were also performed in aristocratic circles. The essence of it then was only that the couples moved gracefully, taking small steps one at a time. Of course, such an action was always accompanied by an appropriate slow music. Even at that time, the folk French minuet was already performed in a certain size - ¾. Many composers wrote works specifically for this dance or simply improvised on receptions and balls.

The formation of dance among the broad masses

At the beginning of the 17th century about this amazing phenomenon folk art Louis XIV found out. It was he who officially proclaimed to the whole country that the minuet is a dance. This was news that instantly spread throughout all the cities, and at every aristocratic court, people close to the king, counts, barons and other holders of high titles began to perform the minuet. Considering the fact that in the 17th and 18th centuries throughout Europe and even in Russia there was a fashion for everything French, this new genre quickly gained leading positions in all noble courts.

The minuet was in favor in St. Petersburg and Moscow; it was performed in Poland and Great Britain. The popularity of the dance did not subside until the mid-19th century, when slow steps were replaced by more energetic rhythms and sharp movements.

Historical image of dance

At the dawn of its existence, the minuet consisted of extremely simple, but very graceful movements. The performers performed curtsies and drawn-out steps; they moved around the hall, now approaching each other, now moving away. Thus, the impression was created that the minuet was not a dance, but only an invitation, very gallant, flirtatious and polite. What was remarkable was that it was always performed by only one couple. That is, the guests took turns dancing the minuet - first the most noble people, then everyone else.

After the dance became widespread in France and abroad, its movements became more complex. It was important to perform steps to the side and forward with maximum precision, thus building up the figures. Another important metamorphosis also occurred. Since the 17th century, the minuet has been a dance performed by all guests at once. The kings walked first, followed by the Dauphins and their companions, and then the rest of the titled guests. All performers lined up in certain figures during the dance. Most often these were the letters “Z” or “S”.

Baroque era

During this period, the minuet undergoes significant transformations. His pace accelerates, his rhythm becomes more mobile and non-standard. If previously the dance was performed strictly in ¾, now a variation has been added to this size - 6/8. A minuet is a dance that is performed simultaneously by most of the guests. Moreover, all their movements should be filled not only with coquetry, but also with affectation, cunning, and charisma. In order to emphasize the “frivolous” nature of the dance, people swapped partners. It is also important to highlight that during the years of popularity the first classical musical accompaniment for this dance. They were divided into three parts and a code. The first was two-voice, the second was three-voice, and in the third part the motifs from the first were repeated. The coda was small and must be performed in a major key.

Features of learning dance

It’s amazing, but despite the apparent simplicity of performing the minuet, it was previously studied for years. From an early age, children were taught to move correctly, their plasticity and grace were developed. Every transition, every step was rehearsed with maximum precision, because any movement in such a dance had to be easy, as if improvisation, and at the same time clear, confident, coinciding with all the others. In fairness, it is worth highlighting that the minuet is a dance that is difficult primarily for men. They had to take off their hat, then, as if in one movement, lure the lady to dance, then, without interrupting the same “breathing,” put it back on their head.

As the world classics wrote

A minuet in music is not just an accompaniment for a dance that has a certain rhythm and tempo. This is a separate genre that exists along with the sonata or prelude. Initially it existed as a separate form and was performed on the harpsichord or clavichord. Later it became an obligatory part of the instrumental suite. When the genre of opera began to gain popularity, the minuet became part of the overture. In the 18th century, entire suites began to be composed of minuets. The first number was always written in a major key, followed by a dance in a minor key.

Often this dance was alternated with others, where the modes also varied. Among the composers who wrote music in this genre, it is worth mentioning J. S. Bach. Along with him, Handel, J.-B. Lully and other composers of the Rococo era. Later, the creators of the Romantic era took up writing minuets. These were Beethoven (in his notes he calls the minuet “scherzo”), Gluck, Mozart, Satie, Debussy. The described genre is also found in the works of domestic composers: Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Rubinstein, etc.