Gavotte

This article is about the folk and court dance and its music. For other uses, see Gavot.

A gavotte in Brittany, France, 1878

The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source.[1] According to another reference, the word gavotte is a generic term for a variety of French folk dances, and most likely originated in Lower Brittany in the west, or possibly Provence in the southeast or the French Basque Country in the southwest of France. It is notated in 4
4 or 2
2 time and is usually of moderate tempo, though the folk dances also use meters such as 9
8 and 5
8.[2]

In late 16th-century Renaissance dance, the gavotte is first mentioned as the last of a suite of branles. Popular at the court of Louis XIV, it became one of many optional dances in the classical suite of dances. Many were composed by Lully, Rameau and Gluck, and the 17th-century cibell is a variety. The dance was popular in France throughout the 18th century and spread widely. In early courtly use the gavotte involved kissing, but this was replaced by the presentation of flowers.[1]

The gavotte of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries has nothing in common with the 19th-century column-dance called the "gavotte"[3] but may be compared with the rigaudon[4] and the bourrée.

  1. ^ a b Scholes, Percy (1970). "Gavotte". The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ Ellis Little, Meredith; Werley, Matthew (2001). "Gavotte (Fr.; Old Eng. gavot; It. gavotta)". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.‎
  3. ^ Sachs, Curt (1963). World History of the Dance. Translated by Bessie Schönberg. New York: W. W. Norton. p. 389.
  4. ^ Quantz, Johann Joachim (1975). On Playing the Flute. Translated by Edward R. Reilly (paperback reprint ed.). New York: Schirmer Books. p. 291. Originally published in 1966 in London by Faber & Faber.