Minuet
(French - menuet; German - Menuett; Italian - minuetto).
A dance, of French origin, in a moderate triple metre. It was known at Louis XIV's court as an elegant social dance performed by one couple at a time, and remained the most popular dance among the European aristocracy until the late 18th century. Lully introduced numerous minuets into his operas and ballets and the dance was frequently included in Baroque keyboard and ensemble suites. Italian minuets, often in 3/8 or 6/8 time, were faster.
The minuet was the only important dance to survive info the Classical period. Italian opera overtures of the early 18th century often close with a minuet, as do many symphonies by G.B. Sammartini, Abel, J.W. Stamitz and Monn and some early piano sonatas by Haydn. After about 1770 the ternary minuet-trio-minuet (da capo), derived from the Baroque practice of playing two minuets 'alternativement', became the standard third (occasionally second) of four movements in symphonies and string quartets. Haydn was the first to substitute movements called 'scherzo' for minuets (in his string quartets op.33) and Beethoven preferred vigorous and robust scherzos in the standard minuet and trio layout, sometimes extended to include a repeat of the trio and a second repeat of the scherzo.
19th-century composers were less interested in the minuet, but some 20th-century composers, including Francaix, Bartók, Schönberg and Ravel, have revived it for its associations with the past.
Extracted with permission from
The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music
edited by Stanley Sadie
© Macmillan Press Ltd., London.