Sarabande

What it means

The sarabande is a slow, solemn dance in triple meter. Along with the allemande, courante, and gigue, it is one of the four standard movements of the Baroque suite, usually placed third.

Its character is one of dignity and weight: the music proceeds with a measured tread rather than flowing dance motion, often in broad, chordal note values.

In the notation

A hallmark of the sarabande is the stress placed on the second beat of the triple meter, often through a longer note value or a suspension, which upsets the usual weighting of the bar and gives it added gravity.

Musical use

The sarabande probably originated in the sixteenth century in Spain or in Spain's American colonies as a fast, at times considered indecent, dance, and was later reshaped at the French court into a slow, ceremonial piece. In this transformed guise it became a fixed part of the instrumental suite of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, appearing in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, and François Couperin.

Within the suite, the sarabande provides a calm, inward-looking contrast between the more animated courante and the lively gigue, and many regard it as the emotional center of the work.

It should be distinguished from the courante, which occupies a similar place in the suite but is markedly more mobile and rhythmically intricate, and from the minuet, which became popular later and carries a lighter, more sociable character.

Performance practice

Give the sarabande room to breathe: playing it too evenly or hurriedly strips away its weight. Bring out the emphasis on the second beat without losing the underlying pulse, and let chord tones ring rather than clipping them short.