Metrical Dissonances in the Baroque Minuet: Theory and Practice

The present paper serves a theoretical as well as a musicological purpose in addressing metrical dissonances in the multifaceted act of Baroque dance music. In identifying the centrality of the minuet in eighteenth-century repertoire as a capital example of the aesthetic style of the time, this article discusses its complex metrical structure in the integrative art of music and dance. By way of established analytical tools designed by contemporary theorists (KREBS, 1999; LERDAHL; JACKENDOFF, 1983; LITTLE; JENNE, 2001) the minuet’s metrical dissonances are systematically analyzed. The complex metrical structure of the minuet is then discussed in light of its practical implications for today’s performance scene. Such a discussion illuminates the need for mutuality between theory and practice in an intentional endeavour to reconcile and, therefore, better understand the historically segregated arts of music and dance in the performance of Baroque repertoire.