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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.
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 or
time and is usually of moderate
tempo, though the folk dances also use meters such as and .
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.
[
The gavotte of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries has nothing in common with the 19th-century column-dance called the "gavotte" but may be compared with the rigaudon and the bourrée.
]
Etymology
The term ''gavotte'' for a lively dance originated in the 1690s from Old Provençal
Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label= Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old ...
''gavoto'' (mountaineer's dance) from ''gavot'', a local name for an Alpine resident, said to mean literally "boor", "glutton", from ''gaver'' (to stuff, force-feed poultry) from Old Provençal ''gava'' (crop). The word is cognate to French ''gavache'' (coward, dastard). The Italianized
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...
form is ''gavotta''.
Musical characteristics
The phrases of the 18th-century French court gavotte begin in the middle of the bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
, creating a half-measure (half-bar) upbeat. However the music for the earlier court gavotte, first described by Thoinot Arbeau in 1589, invariably began on the downbeat of a duple measure. Later composers also wrote gavottes that began on the downbeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...
rather than on the half-measure: an example is Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theory, music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of Fr ...
's ''Gavotte Variée'' in A minor for keyboard. Various folk gavottes found in mid-20th-century Brittany are danced to music in , , , and time.[
]
In the ball-room the gavotte was often paired with a preceding triple-time minuet: both dances are stately, and the gavotte's lifted step contrasted with the shuffling minuet step. It had a steady rhythm, not broken up into faster notes.[
]
In the Baroque suite the gavotte is played after (or sometimes before) the sarabande
The sarabande (from es, zarabanda) is a dance in triple metre, or the music written for such a dance.
History
The Sarabande evolved from a Spanish dance with Arab influences, danced by a lively double line of couples with castanets. A dance cal ...
. Like most dance movements of the Baroque period it is typically in binary form
Binary form is a musical form in 2 related sections, both of which are usually repeated. Binary is also a structure used to choreograph dance. In music this is usually performed as A-A-B-B.
Binary form was popular during the Baroque period, of ...
but this may be extended by a second melody in the same metre, often one called the ''musette'', having a pedal drone to imitate the French bagpipes, played after the first to create a grand ternary form; A–(A)–B–A.[ There is a ''Gavotte en Rondeau'' ("Gavotte in rondo form") in J.S. Bach's Partita No. 3 in E Major for solo violin, BWV 1006.
The gavotte could be played at a variety of '' tempi'': Johann Gottfried Walther wrote that the gavotte is "often quick but occasionally slow".
]
Renaissance
The gavotte is first described in the late 16th century as a suite or miscellany of double branles danced in a line or circle to music in duple time, "with little springs in the manner of the Haut Barrois" branle and with some of the steps "divided" with figures borrowed from the galliard.
The basic gavotte step, as described by Arbeau, is that of the common or double branle, a line of dancers moving alternately to the left and right with a ''double à gauche'' and ''double à droite'', each requiring a count of four. In the double branle these composite steps consist of; a ''pied largi'' (firm outward step), a ''pied approche'' (the other foot drawn near to the first), another ''pied largi'' and a ''pied joint'' (the other foot drawn against the first).
In the gavotte's ''double à gauche'' a skip (''petit saut'') is inserted after each of the four components; the second ''pied largi'' is replaced by a ''marque pied croisé'' (the following foot crosses over the left with toe contacting the floor); the final ''pied approche'' is replaced by a ''grève croisée'' (the right foot crosses over the left, raised).
The ''double à droite'' begins with a ''pieds joints'' and ''petit saut'', followed by two quick steps, a ''marque pied gauche croisé'' and ''marque pied droit croisé'', during beat two, a ''grève droit croisée'' and ''petit saut'' on beat three and on the last beat ''pieds joints'' and a ''capriole'' (leap into the air with entrechat).
Baroque
The gavotte became popular in the court of Louis XIV where Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully ( , , ; born Giovanni Battista Lulli, ; – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer, guitarist, violinist, and dancer who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he ...
was the leading court composer. Gaétan Vestris did much to define the dance. Subsequently many composers of the Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
period incorporated the dance as one of many optional additions to the standard instrumental suite
Suite may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*Suite (music), a set of musical pieces considered as one composition
** Suite (Bach), a list of suites composed by J. S. Bach
** Suite (Cassadó), a mid-1920s composition by Gaspar Cassadó
** ''Suite' ...
of the era. The examples in suites and partitas by Johann Sebastian Bach are well known.
Movements of early 18th-century musical works entitled ''Tempo di gavotta'' sometimes indicated the sense of a gavotte rhythm or movement, without fitting the number of measures or strains typical of the actual dance. Examples of these can be found in the works of Arcangelo Corelli or Johann Sebastian Bach.
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, ...
wrote a number of gavottes, including the fifth-and-final movement, Allegro, of the Concerto Grosso in B-flat major, Op. 3, No. 2 – HWV 313.
Later examples
Composers in the 19th century wrote gavottes that began, like the 16th-century gavotte, on the downbeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...
rather than on the half-measure upbeat. The famous Gavotte in D by Gossec is such an example, as is the Gavotte in Massenet's ''Manon'' but not the one in Ambroise Thomas's '' Mignon''. A gavotte also occurs in the second act of '' The Gondoliers'' and the act 1 finale of '' Ruddigore'', both by Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...
.
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the foremost Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of N ...
's suite, '' From Holberg's Time'', based on eighteenth-century dance forms, features a "Gavotte", as its third movement (1884).
Australian composer Fred Werner
Fred Werner born ''Gottfried W Werner'' was an Australian composer, music teacher. He was possibly born near Berlin
where he attended the prestigious Stern Conservatory and studied under Polish composer Theodor Kullak.
He migrated to Coolabah, ...
used a gavotte he composed for teaching students.
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
's ballet '' Pulcinella'' features a "Gavotta con due variazioni", as number 18, and movement VI in the suite (1922).
Sergei Prokofiev employs a gavotte instead of a minuet in his Symphony No. 1 (''Classical''), Op. 25 (1917), and includes another one as the third of his Ten Piano Pieces Op. 12 (1913), and another as the third of his Four Piano Pieces, Op. 32 (1918).
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
's ''Candide
( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The ...
'' has a "Venice Gavotte" in act 2.
"The Ascot Gavotte" is a song in the 1956 musical '' My Fair Lady'' by Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre bot ...
and Frederick Loewe
Frederick Loewe (, originally German Friedrich (Fritz) Löwe ; June 10, 1901 – February 14, 1988) was an Austrian-United States, American composer. He collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including ''Br ...
.
References in popular culture
* Early 20th century musician Samuel Siegel recorded a ragtime mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
tune "Gavotte".
* Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, memoirist, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation" (No. 13), " The Right Thin ...
's song " You're So Vain" includes the lyric "You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte". In this context it means "moving in a pretentious manner".
* The Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with sho ...
musical ''Sunday in the Park with George
''Sunday in the Park with George'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It was inspired by the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting ''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatt ...
'' uses the word ''gavotte'' as a satirical device in the otherwise irregular, non-steadily rhythmical, song "It's Hot Up Here" to start the second act, "We're stuck up here in this gavotte".
* The Johnny Mercer
John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallich ...
song "Strip Polka" includes the lyric "Oh, she hates corny waltzes and she hates the gavotte".
* Geneticist W. D. Hamilton in his paper "Gamblers since life began: barnacles, aphids, elms." in '' The Quarterly Review of Biology'' (1975) referred to the drilled formality of the mechanisms of individual reproduction as "the gavotte of chromosomes".
* Philosopher Stephen David Ross
Stephen David Ross (born 1935) is an American philosopher, currently Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture and of Comparative Literature at Binghamton University. He has published over 30 books in interdiscipl ...
characterises metaphysical aporia as "the disruptive side of a tradition that needs both repetition and its annihilation for intelligibility. It is a site at which same and other dance their unending gavotte of life and death."
* Agustín Barrios wrote a solo guitar piece, "Madrigal Gavotte", which is a combination of the two styles.
* In the anime ''Kiniro no Corda'' (''La Corda d'Oro
is a Japanese role-playing game series targeted at a female demographic audience from Koei. The title is Italian for ''The Golden String''.
The story was adapted into a manga by the game's character designer, Yuki Kure, which ...
''), "Gavotte in D" by Gossec is heard many times, though referred to only as "Gavotte".
* In the novel '' Good Omens'', it is noted that one cannot determine how many angels can dance on the head of a pin
"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" (alternatively "How many angels can stand on the point of a pin?") is a ''reductio ad absurdum'' challenge to medieval scholasticism in general, and its angelology in particular, as represented by ...
, because angels do not dance—the exception being the Principality
A principality (or sometimes princedom) can either be a monarchical feudatory or a sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a regnant-monarch with the title of prince and/or princess, or by a monarch with another title considered to fall under ...
Aziraphale, who once learned to do the gavotte.
*The "Cutting Gavotte" is an attack in the Japanese version of the role-playing game ''Infinite Undiscovery''.
*In the Broadway musical ''1776
Events January–February
* January 1 – American Revolutionary War – Burning of Norfolk: The town of Norfolk, Virginia is destroyed, by the combined actions of the British Royal Navy and occupying Patriot forces.
* January 1 ...
'' during the song "Cool, Considerate Men", reference is made to "Mr. Adams' new gavotte"—a reference regarding John Adams' ideas for a declaration of independence from Great Britain.
*In the 1967 film, '' How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying'', the song "A Secretary Is not a Toy" refers to a gavotte. The song discourages personal indiscretions with secretaries at the firm. The reference to a gavotte is meant to be ironic, as the original dance accompanying the song from the Broadway show was a modified gavotte.
*In the manga and anime '' One Piece'', the skeleton musician character Brooke (and his "zombie," Ryuuma, which was given life by Brooke's shadow) has a signature technique, ''Gavotte Bond en Avant''.
*In the Robert Pinsky poem "Impossible To Tell", the gavotte is mentioned in the first line.
*In John Updike
John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...
's novel ''Bech at Bay
Henry Bech is a fictional character created by American author John Updike. Bech first appeared in assorted short stories, stories which were later compiled in the books ''Bech: A Book'' (1970), ''Bech Is Back'' (1982), and ''Bech at Bay'' (1998). ...
'', for the protagonist, "It embarrassed him that for these young Czechs American writing, its square dance of lame old names, should appear such a lively gavotte, prancing carefree into the future."
*In the mid-nineteenth-century novel ''The Scout'', William Gilmore Simms describes a lonely sentry: "He sang, and whistled, and soliloquized; and, not unfrequently, relieved the dull measured step of the sentinel by the indulgence of such a gavotte as a beef-eating British soldier of the 'prince's own' might be supposed capable of displaying in that period of buckram movement."
* Describing American foreign policy in the wake of the September 11 attacks, author Norman Podhoretz says, "Far from 'rushing into war,' we were spending months dancing a diplomatic gavotte in the vain hope of enlisting the help of France, Germany, and Russia."
* Polish resistance fighter Jan Kamieński describes his personal experience of the chaos of the first German air strike on Poland in these terms: "Paintings were falling off the walls, the Biedermeier sofa and its complement of chairs bounced around as if dancing some crazy gavotte, the Bechnstein grand piano slid past me on two of its casters …".
* The poem "Wakefulness" by John Ashbery includes the sentence: "A gavotte of dust-motes / came to replace my seeing."
*In the poem "12/2/80" from ''Waltzing Matilda'' (1981), Alice Notley writes: "A leaf if local / only when falling. // 'What? like a gavotte?' / the common evergreen rustle: / hours & regulations & so on ...",
* Chas and Dave
Chas & Dave (often billed as Chas 'n' Dave) were a British pop rock duo, formed in London by Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock. Hodges died in 2018.
They were most notable as creators and performers of a musical style labelled ''rockney'' (a port ...
produced a song called ''Give it Gavotte'' which uses this style on the album '' Job Lot''
* In the book Good Omens by Terry Prattchet one of the characters, angel Aziraphale had learned a dance called the gavotte in a discreet gentlemen's club in Portland Place in the late 1880s
References
Further reading
*Guilcher, Jean-Michel. 1963. ''La tradition populaire de danse en Basse-Bretagne''. Etudes Européennes 1. Paris and The Hague: Mouton. Second edition, 1976, Paris: Mouton. . New, expanded edition, 1995, Spézet-Douarnenez: Coop-Breizh. . Douarnenez: Chasse-Marée-Armen. . Reprinted 1997.
*Semmens, Richard T. 1997. "Branles, Gavottes and Contredanses in the Later Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries". ''Dance Research'' 15, no. 2 (Winter): 35–62.
External links
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French dances
French music history
Breton dances
Baroque dance
Renaissance music
Baroque music
Dance forms in classical music