The courante, corrente, coranto, and corant are names used for a type of dance with a triple meter that was popular during the late Renaissance and Baroque periods. In a Baroque dance suite, an Italian or French courante is usually placed after an allemande, making it the second movement of the suite. If a prelude is included, the courante becomes the third movement.

Types

The word "courante" means "running." During the Renaissance, the courante was danced with quick steps and jumps, as noted by Thoinot Arbeau. However, in the Baroque period, Johann Mattheson described the courante in Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739) as having a mood of "sweet expectation," with music that felt heartfelt, longing, and satisfying. Johann Gottfried Walther, in Musicalisches Lexicon (1732), stated that the courante had the most serious rhythm of any dance.

During the Baroque era, there were two types of courante: French and Italian. The French courante was usually written in 2/2 time but used rhythmic and metrical patterns (like hemiola) and had the slowest tempo among French court dances. It was described by Mattheson, Quantz, and Rousseau as "grave and majestic." The Italian courante was significantly faster.

Sometimes, French and Italian spellings were used to identify the two types of courante, but original spellings were not always consistent. Johann Sebastian Bach used "courante" and "corrente" to distinguish French and Italian styles in his Partitas from Clavierübung. In Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach by Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne, "courante" and "corrente" are treated as separate dances, though some editors have ignored this distinction.

In Bach’s unaccompanied Partita for Violin No. 2, the first movement (titled Allemanda) begins in a way that might initially sound like a courante, as if in 4/4 time. The second movement, titled Corrente, is more lively. A faster tempo mentioned by Baroque composer Georg Muffat in his instructions on Lullian bowing may have resulted from a translation error.