Menuets et Contre Dances [Mag:PAR0248]

Menuets et Contre Dances. Contributors: Monteclair. Recorder with Keyboard or Continuo (A, Pf). Publisher's category: Recorder with Keyboard or Continuo.

Monteclair is best known nowadays for his flute music, but he played the double bass at the Paris Opera, part-owned a music shop, was a composer of cantatas, serenades, instrumental concerts, a ballet and a well-received opera Jephte. In addition he was a respected teacher who wrote four treatises about music.
He also published two books of contre-danses and six books of menuets but, sadly, only one book of the contre-danses and two of the menuets have survived. This is still over two hundred pieces, and this edition takes a selection from each, transposing them to comfortable keys for the treble recorder. The title pages announce that the dances were played at balls at the Opera; spectacular events for the nobility of France.
Monteclairs publications would have allowed other people to dance to the same music.
The menuets do not specify any instrumentation, but the contre-danses are for violins, flutes or oboes, so recorder players would have had to transpose them as necessary. It was common practice to play single-line melody parts on several instruments at once, with as many instruments as were available.
The word con tre-dance or contre-danse is believed to be a corruption of the English country dance. Contre-danses became more and more popular throughout the 18th century, perhaps as a reaction to the refined (and difficult) dancing styles of the court, perhaps just because they were fun. Like the menuets, each individual contre-danse is too short for dancing and would probably have been played many times over. 24 page score and parts.

Published by Magnamusic.
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