[mb-users] Classical question: Minuets, menuets, rondos, rondeaus, and rondeaux

[Leiv Hellebo]

Olivier wrote:
> 2008/2/12, Brian Schweitzer <brian.brianschweitzer at gmail.com>:
>> Just a question for someone who may know.  I've always taken minuet
>> and menuet / rondo, rondeau, and rondeaux to be equivalents of the
>> same thing.  Does anyone know if there is indeed a meaningful
>> difference between the terms?

I don't think mb-users is the best place for this question ;)

> 
> "Rondo" in French is tolerated as a variant spelling of the proper
> "rondeau" when referring only to the musical form of a rondeau (rondo
> as far as I can tell is the one used in English word).
> 

Setting the menuet/minuet thing aside, there's more at stake here than
just variant spellings:

http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/g_rondo.html

As I don't wear analytical glasses when I listen to music, this is all 
above my head. But FWIW:

Since you asked, I've had fun listening to some Couperin, Rameau, 
Telemann and Bach. For their rondeaux I generally find this quote from 
to be fitting:

"in the Baroque era, the label rondeau [...] was applied to dance
movements in simple refrain form" [1]

Mozart's Rondeau in K. 189f - a randomly chosen example, on the other 
hand, is light but much less danceable. This, I guess (so don't trust me 
:), is what Grove tells was expanded to stuff like the Rondo of e.g. K. 494.

For the Rondo, I find that it has much more lyricism. For Mozart and 
Boccherini the music "gains depth" I think you might call it, as the 
music may change mood, and become somewhat sad for a bit before 
concluding on a happy note.

Happy listening :)


leivhe

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondeau_%28music%29