The Écossaise (in
French, "Scottish") is a musical form and a type of
contradanse
A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in England in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, perfo ...
in a
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
style – a
Scottish country dance
Scottish country dance (SCD) is the distinctively Scottish form of country dance, itself a form of social dance involving groups of couples of dancers tracing progressive patterns. A dance consists of a sequence of figures. These dances are ...
at least in name – that was popular in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
and
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th. Despite the Écossaise mimicking a Scottish country dance, it is actually French in origin. The écossaise was usually danced in
2/4 time in two lines, with men facing the women. As the dance is executed, couples progress to the head of the line.
Écossaise compositions were mainly written for solo piano, so that couples could dance to it. The
musical form
In music, ''form'' refers to the structure of a musical composition or musical improvisation, performance. In his book, ''Worlds of Music'', Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a ...
was also adopted by some classical composers, including
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
, (WoO 83 and WoO 86 for piano and WoO 22 and WoO 23, now lost, for
military band
A military band is a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind instrument, wind and percussion instruments. The conducting, conductor of a ...
);
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...
, (D.145, 158, 299, 421, 511, 529, 643, 697, 734, 735, 781, 782, 783, 816, and 977);
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for Piano solo, solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown ...
(Op. 72 number 3) and
Cécile Chaminade's ''Écossaise,'' Op. 151.
References
* ''New Grove Dictionary'' 2001 p. 870–871
* ''Suzuki Piano School, Volume 2, Revised Edition'' 1995 p.5
External links
Watch Écossaise on the piano on YouTubeInternational Music Score Library Project: Ecossaises
contra dance
dance forms in classical music
Scottish country dance
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