Annotation:Minuet de la Cour
Back to Minuet de la Cour
MINUET DE LA COUR. English, Minuet (3/4 time). E Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "The Minuet de la Cour and Allemande" was performed in the last scene, a Masquerade, in The Chapter of Accidents, staged in London in 1784 and subsequently appeared (tune and dance) inserted in several London theater productions, often called "The Minuet de la Cour and Gavot." The piece is listed as "A French Air" in George Forrester's Flute Player's Pocket Companion (c. 1817). It is sometimes given that it was composed "for the Queen", and the dance is said to date to the mid-17th century from the French court.
The Minuet de la Cour was taught by American dancing master John Durang ("Durang's Hornpipe") at his dancing academy, and choreography for it appears in son Charles Durang's The Fashionable Dancer's Casket."
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Forrester (Flute Player's Pocket Companion), c. 1817; p. 4. Morrison (Twenty-Four Early American Country Dances, Cotillions & Reels, for the Year 1976), 1976; p. 17. Westrop (120 Country Dances), c. 1860's. Wilson (A Companion to the Ball Room), 1816; p. 17.
Recorded sources: