The courant (courante, corraunt, etc.) in Praetorius's time was closely related to the jig or gigue, and therefore quite different from the later, much subtler and slower French court dance (spelled courante) that also became a staple of late Baroque dance suites. The relationship can be seen in the opening of n50, with its firm triple meter, dotted rhythms, and (atypical) arpeggio figures—these latter are bracketed.
In
Terpsichore, the many courants are in either two or three strains. In n50, the openings of the second and third strains pick up one or the other of the opening motives, making for a nicely compact melodic design (it should be noted, though, that this is one of the melodies Praetorius marks as "incerti").
The point of interest is the ending of the first strain. A straightforward cadential move from ^6 through ^7 to ^8 can cause problems in the voice leading if the bass simply moves, as here, from IV to V to I. Praetorius solves the problem with diminutions that create "inserted" intervals between the bass and a potentially offending voice: 8 between two 5s at (a), and 10 between two 8s at (b). His method was standard in polyphony of all sorts (including improvised) in the sixteenth century.
