A Recently Discovered Ballet for the Court of Wolfenbüttel

Among the extant choreographies in Feuillet notation only a small number is explicitly written for the stage. At the same time only a few German choreographies in Feuillet notation are known today. Therefore I was glad to find a completely unknown source which belongs to both categories. It is a small ballet of three dances which was performed at the court of Wolfenbüttel in 1726. Two dances are written in Feuillet notation and one dance is written in Feuillet's contredanse notation. Of all German courts of the baroque era Wolfenbüttel has the richest dance tradition and the paper wants to place the ballet and its choreographer in that context. It will also discuss the dances themselves. At first glance the three choreographies seem not very exciting but they appear in a different light if we have a closer look at the six dancers for whom they were written.