The Bourrée is a dance of French origin and is often referred to as the “French clog dance”. The bourrée resembles the gavotte in that it is in double time and often has a dactylic rhythm. However, it is somewhat quicker, and its phrase starts with a quarter-bar anacrusis or “pick-up”, whereas a gavotte has a half-bar anacrusis. In the Baroque era, after the Academie de Dance was established by Louis XIV in 1661, the French court adapted the bourrée, like many such dances, for the purposes of concert dance. In this way it gave its name to a ballet step characteristic of the dance, a rapid movement of the feet while en pointe or demi-pointe, and so to the sequence of steps called pas de bourrée.
In his Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739), Johann Mattheson wrote of the bourrée, “its distinguishing feature resides in contentment and a pleasant demeanor, at the same time it is somewhat carefree and relaxed, a little indolent and easygoing, though not disagreeable”.
Johann Sebastian Bach often used the bourrée in his suites as one of the optional dance movements that come after the saraband but before the gigue, and he also wrote two short bourrées in his Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. That in his Lute Suite in E Minor (BWV 996) is especially popular. Handel wrote several bourrées in his solo chamber sonatas (for example the fourth movement of his Oboe sonata in C minor); however, perhaps his best-known is the seventh movement of the Water Music suite. In the 19th century Frédéric Chopin and Emmanuel Chabrier wrote bourrées for the piano (such as the latter’s Bourrée Fantasque, composed 1891). The Victorian English composer, Sir Hubert Parry included a bourrée in his Lady Radnor Suite (1894).
The bourrée has been used by a number of pop and rock music bands, particularly Bach E Minor Bourrée for the Lute. In 1969 both Bakerloo and Jethro Tull released versions of this, the former as a single, “Drivin’ Bachwards”, on Harvest Records (HAR 5004) in July and on their self-titled debut album (Harvest SHVL 762) the following December, the latter on their August album Stand Up. Paul McCartney also stated that the Beatles had known the tune for a long time and that it had inspired his song Blackbird.
Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin often played the opening section of Bourrée in E minor as part of the solo of a live performance of Heartbreaker, and he has also described the acoustic guitar and recorder intro to Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven as “a poor man’s bourrée”. Tenacious D play a short rendering in “Rock Your Socks” on their eponymous album and in “Classico” on their second album. Rock guitarist Blues Saraceno plays a jazz version in the beginning and end of the track “Bouree” on his third album, Hairpick.
