An allemande (pronounced "al-mahn") is a dance from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was a common type of instrumental dance during the Baroque era, with examples created by composers like Couperin, Purcell, Bach, and Handel. It was often the first movement in a Baroque suite of dances, followed by a courante. Sometimes, it was preceded by an introduction or prelude. Along with the waltz and ländler, the allemande was sometimes called "German Dance" in writings from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
A different version of the allemande, which was called by that name during the time of Mozart and Beethoven, is still practiced in Germany and Switzerland today. This version is a lively dance in triple time, similar to the waltz and the ländler.
The name "allemande" comes from the French word for Germany.
History
The allemande began in the 16th century as a dance with a steady rhythm and moderate speed. It was already seen as very old at that time, with a special starting rhythm of two or three quick notes. It seems to have come from a German dance, but no clear examples or instructions from that time remain.
The first written records of the allemande come from the 16th-century French dancing master Thoinot Arbeau and the British Inns of Court. These records describe dancers forming a line of couples who held hands and walked across the room. They took three steps and then balanced on one foot. A faster version, called the allemande courante, used three bouncy steps and a hop. Elizabethan British composers wrote many separate pieces called "Almans."
In the 17th century, French composers changed the allemande, using a four-beat rhythm and varying its speed more widely. This slower version, like the pavane, was used in memorial compositions called tombeaux. German composers such as Froberger and Bach also used the allemande in keyboard music, though group dances kept a more traditional style. Italian and English composers used the allemande more freely, writing with counterpoint and using a range of speeds, including from very slow to very fast.
In his Musikalisches Lexicon (1732), Johann Gottfried Walther wrote that the allemande "must be composed and danced in a serious and formal way." Johann Mattheson, in Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), described the allemande as a serious, well-structured piece with smooth, flowing music that expresses happiness and calm. Its music has no uneven rhythms, combines short musical ideas into larger sections, and uses contrasts in tone and melody.
Some moves from the allemande, such as close embraces and turning, were later used in square and contra dances. In the allemande, couples hold one arm and turn around each other to the left or right.
Triple meter dance
In the late 1700s, the term "allemande" or "German Dance" began to describe a different kind of dance with a rhythm that has three beats per measure. Weber's "Douze allemandes op. 4" from 1801 foreshadowed the development of the waltz. Both Mozart and Beethoven created collections of German Dances in this style. Another version of this dance later became known as the Ländler.