The third movement of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 is a “Courante.” A courante is a dance that had been characterized in the Renaissance by leaping and running, but by the Baroque, it had a warmer and sweeter association, and, apparently by using this spelling, Bach was invoking the French, rather than the Italian, form of this dance. In any case, Bach’s Courante is not the slowest dance on the block.

Here’s my practice session from a few days ago of the Courante–again without repeats for the sake of stamina. A couple of technical things about this arrangement by Ralph Sauer: this movement, like most in this suite, have low Fs. I throw out the third and first slide together to have enough tubing (I also have a special, longer third-valve stopper on my Bach B-flat). There are places where you need to breath (and take a break!)–when that happens, if you slow down before the breath and ease back into the tempo, it’s less obtrusive.