"A sort of dance in great use among the Venetians."

Brossard (1701) [1]

 

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Closely related to the gigue and the loure, the forlane, or forlana, was originally a popular folk dance from Venice, with further roots in Slovenia. It was particularly favoured by gondoliers and street people, accompanied by mandolins, castanets, and drums, and were associated with lust and flirtation.[2] The forlane became popular in France at the turn of the 18th century following its first appearance in Campra’s 1697 opera-ballet L’Europe Galante, and was regularly performed in both ballrooms and theatres.

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The French forlane was known for being a lively and energetic dance which was described as wild and gay. Despite no documentation of pendulum markings, these characterisations should be replicated in the choice of tempo, therefore a moderate to fast tempo suggestion of 69-80 per dotted crotchet (or half bar beat) is generally accepted as most suitable.[3] The tempo of a forlane should be somewhere between the loure, which is slower, and the gigue, which is faster.

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A compound-duple metre dance in 6/4 or 6/8, forlanes are written in rondeau form, with a reoccurring theme interspersed between different material. The balanced phrases, unlike the loure, are 4 bars long and are repeated to last 8 bars in total. They typically begin with a crotchet or quaver upbeat and make much use of dotted rhythms. An identical sautillant rhythm used in gigues can be found in forlanes, as demonstrated in 6/8 in Ex. 1 and in 6/4 in Ex. 2, giving the dance its energetic and bouncy quality. If the shortest note in each group of 3 is removed, a double iamb is produced, creating a short-long-short-long rhythmic pattern whereby the first short note falls on the upbeat before the bar line, and the first long note falls on the following downbeat, as seen in Ex. 3. A light articulation should be used on the short notes within each half bar group to give lift and movement, with a stronger articulation on the downbeats.

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