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Middlemarch vocabulary

8 music terms, specific compositions and/or instruments

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minuet: tags: [music]

► definition

Definition:

1. a slow French "social dance" that was very popular in the late 1700's.
2. a music form having a similar time and rhythm as the dance. Jean-Baptiste Lully often used this format in his compositions.

^{sound file: by Markus Staab under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.}
^{https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Paderewski_-_Minuet_in_G%2C_Op._14_no_1.ogg}

► uses

Uses:

The old custom of opening a ball with a minuet is still practised here, and the Chilians dance it remarkably well.

Otto von Kotzebue. A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1

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"A tune much iterated has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort of minuet to keep time—an effect hardly tolerable, I imagine, after boyhood.

George Eliot. Middlemarch

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No, that’s noise. Minuet of Don Giovanni he’s playing now.

James Joyce. Ulysses