L'Organiste

L'Organiste is a dance in the European (French) contredanse style, which derived from English Country dance.

It was written by a Belgian (though Belgium at the time was part of the Austrian Empire) who divised many other Contredanse.

Trappeniers writes:

N^o1 Le premier Couple fair Chassé, Croisé
et chaque un tour do 2 mains avec le second Couple.
N^o2 Le Couple dansant, fait 4 pas et l'allemande.
et descend un Couple en dehors.
N^o3 Ce Couple se place entre le second.
Tous quatre, les mains enchaînées et dans cette figure vont en avant et en arrière.
N^o4 Le Couple dansant croise les mains.
et descend la colonme le Cavalier croise avec sa Dame,
et descend une Couple en dehores.
N^o5 On fait la Chaîne.

Trappaniers gives 5 figures. All but the 3rd appear to me to take 8 bars, so I shall assume that one does too, and repeat the described figure in the other direction. The music consists of 3 eight bar strains, all repeated, but that gives us 48 bars and we need 40. So I shall assume the final strain is only played once: AABBC

I shall assume that when Trappeniers says "Chassé" he means some form of setting.

I don't know what to make of "fait 4 pas et l'allemande". Is "faire 4 pas" another variety of setting? Whatever it means that leaves just 2 bars for the allemande. The English allemandes of that period take 4 bars...

No. 3 is just a line of four going up and falling back. I'm not sure what "les mains enchaînées" means. The easiest translation is just that they all take hands, but perhaps something more complicated is intended? Maybe hands are crossed in front of the body so that you join hands with the person furthest from that shoulder? (the line starts as M2 L1 M1 L2 facing up with M2 leftmost so M2 gives his left hand to L1, and she gives him her right, then she gives her left to M1 who gives her his right, then he gives his left to L2 who gives him her right. This is the only figure which appears to take four bars (lines of four in ECD usually go up a double and fall back a double. So to make it 8 bars I assume everyone should turn, go down a double and fall back.

I assume "Le Couple dansant croise les mains" means "in promenade hold". This figure has the lead couple go down two couples. Since, in those days, everything was within the minor set, that means the 1s must start the figure back at the top of the set to be able to go through their own 2s and 3s. I also assume that once they've gone below two couples they need to get back up to the top somehow, and probably this is where progression happens.

Many thanks to Johan Van Der Elst for placing Trappeniers's Recueil de Contredanses online.

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