sarabande

A 16th-c dance of Spanish or Latin-American origin in triple time. In a different form and slower tempo it became a standard movement of the Baroque suite, where a long note on the second beat is a distinctive feature.

In music, the sarabande (It., sarabanda) is a slow dance in triple metre with the distinctive feature that beats 2 and 3 of the measure are often tied, giving a distinctive rhythm of quarter note and half note in alternation.

The sarabande is first mentioned in Central America: in 1539, a dance called a zarabanda is mentioned in a poem written in Panama by Fernando Guzmán Mexía. The sarabande form was revived in the 20th Century by composers such as Debussy, Satie and, in a different style, Vaughan Williams (in Job) and Benjamin Britten (in the Simple Symphony)

Perhaps the most famous sarabande is the anonymous La folie espagnole whose melody appears in pieces by dozens of composers from the time of Monteverdi and Corelli through the present day.

Stanley Kubrick used a sarabande by George Frideric Handel in the soundtrack to his film Barry Lyndon.