Allemande

What it means

The allemande, literally “the German one,” is a moderately paced dance in duple meter that became a fixed part of the Baroque instrumental suite. In the classical suite order it usually opens the cycle, preceding the faster dances such as the courante, sarabande, and gigue in both tempo and character.

Characteristic of the allemande is its opening with a short upbeat, usually a single note or a small group of notes before the first full measure, along with a continuously flowing, often polyphonic voice leading without pronounced dance-like leaps.

Musical use

In the Baroque suite the allemande follows the basic sequence allemande–courante–sarabande–gigue, with additional so-called galant movements such as minuet, gavotte, or bourrée often inserted between the sarabande and the gigue. The allemande itself usually stands without such interpolated movements.

Despite its dance-derived name, by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the allemande in art music was no longer a dance actually danced but a stylized instrumental form that preserved the original dance character only in its meter and calm basic tempo.

Well-known examples appear in the suites and partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose allemande movements often feature dense, imitative voice leading with continuous sixteenth-note motion.

Performance practice

Play the upbeat clearly but unobtrusively, so it flows organically into the first full measure. Keep the tempo calm and even, and shape the flowing lines with gentle dynamic arcs rather than sharp accents, to preserve the measured, almost walking character.