In music, Galant was a term referring to a style, principally occurring in the third quarter of the 18th century, which featured a return to classical simplicity after the complexity of the late Baroque era. This meant (in some implementations) simpler music, with less ornamentation, decreased use of polyphony (with increased importance on the melody), musical phrases of regular length, a reduced harmonic vocabulary (principally emphasizing tonic and dominant), and a less important bass line. It was, in many ways, a reaction against the showy Baroque style. Probably the most famous composer in the Galant style was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... The word classical has several meanings: Pertaining to the societies of the classical antiquity, ancient Greece or Rome. ... Baroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. ... Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ... }} Wiktionary has a definition of: Melody In music, a melody is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord. ... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint The Baroque was a style in art that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce... Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Weimar, March 8, 1714 – December 14, German musician and composer, the second son of Johann Sebastian Bach. ...

Movement toward the preponderance of a homophonic texture in music had begun more than two centuries earlier, when composers started to insert sustained passages of homophony in their masses and motets to underline important portions of the text. It proceeded through the 16th century with the development of such generally homophonic vocal genres as the frottola and villanella in Italy, which led to monody and opera, the air de cour, air a boire and other continuo-accompanied songs in France, and the English lute song. Homophony grew popular during these years in instrumental music as well. Composed instrumental music seems to have consisted almost exclusively of transcribed chansons and other vocal works, or else the mere playing of such on instruments rather than singing them, until fairly late in the 15th century. In addition to this, however, existed a tradition of improvised dance-accompaniment music, and what early surviving instrument-specific compositions that are not of liturgical function follow in that vein. Indeed, a gulf between liturgical and non-liturgical instrumental music soon grew which was similar to that between the two vocal categories, though this was manifested more in form than texture. Homophony is music in which the top line has a dominant melody, and all the voices accompany it with chords in the same rhythm. ... Mass is a property of physical objects that, roughly speaking, measures the amount of matter they contain. ... In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ... The frottola is the predominant type of Italian popular, secular song of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. ... In music, a villanella (pl. ... Caccini, Le Nuove musiche, 1601, title page Monody is a kind of music distinguished by having a single melodic line and accompaniment. ... The foyer of Charles Garniers Opéra, Paris, opened 1875 Opera is an art form consisting of a dramatic stage performance set to music. ... The Air de cour was a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the very late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650. ... Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervallic content (the intervals which make up a sonority), later chords, in relation to a bass note. ... Chanson is a French word for song, and in English-language contexts is often applied to any song with French words, particularly a cabaret song. ...

During the 17th century, local schools of keyboard, plucked-instrument, and ensemble styles arose in France, England, and Italy, while the Germans tended to take stylistic elements from various sources. The stratification of melody and accompaniment that had been developing in vocal music also greatly influenced the instrumental; the two treble-plus-basso continuo texture of the Corellian trio sonata late in the century, for example, clearly derives from that of the earlier Monteverdian "concerto" for a few voices and continuo. It was in these local schools that emerged and congealed the characteristics called "galant," a style which was fully-fledged by the 1720s, and which, it is important to note, was recognised and referred to by this name in the writings of such contemporary commentators as Johann Mattheson (an important German theorist and composer), and Johann Joachim Quantz (composer and flute pedagogue). Arcangelo Corelli (February 17, 1653 – January 8, 1713) was an Italian violin player and Baroque music composer. ... The trio sonata is a musical form which was particularly popular around the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century. ... Portrait of Claudio Monteverdi in Venice, 1640, by Bernardo Strozzi Claudio Monteverdi (May 15, 1567 (baptised) – November 29, 1643) was an Italian composer, violinist and singer. ... Concertato (sometimes called stile concertato) is a term in early Baroque music referring to either a genre or a style of music in which groups of instruments or voices share a melody, usually in alternation, and almost always over a basso continuo. ... Johann Mattheson (September 28, 1681 – April 17, 1764) was a German composer, writer, lexicographer, and music theorist. ... Johann Joachim Quantz (January 30, 1697–July 12, 1773) was a German flutist, flute maker and composer. ...

Composers at least some of whose work can be described as galant include Francois Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Fery Rebel of France, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, Baldassare Gallupi, and Antonio Vivaldi of Italy, the three most important Bach sons, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Johann Gottlieb Graun of Germany, and in England Thomas Augustine Arne, William Boyce, and John Stanley. As can be seen, perhaps, from some of these names, the galant style existed alongside of others, such as the lingering but increasingly retrospective high Baroque in all its national forms. As can equally be seen, the galant style was a driving force leading to the incipient "classical," or "Viennese classical" style to which point some works of Sammartini, Vivaldi, and C.P.E. Bach in particular among the above-mentioned composers. The German mid-18th century style arising from and sometimes synonymous with the galant is the Empfindsamerstil, which in part led to the tendencies often called Sturm und Drang. François Couperin (born Paris November 10, 1668 – September 12, 1733 in Paris) was an esteemed French composer in the Baroque style. ... Jean-Philippe Rameau (September 25, 1683 - September 12, 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. ... Giovanni Battista Sammartini (ca. ... Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (March 4, 1678, Venice – July 28, 1741, Vienna), nicknamed Il Prete Rosso, meaning The Red Priest, was an Italian priest and baroque music composer. ... In music, the BACH motif is the sequence of notes B flat, A, C, B natural. ... Georg Philipp Telemann (March 14, 1681–June 25, 1767) was a German Baroque music composer, born in Magdeburg. ... Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-March 5, 1778) was an English composer, best known for the popular patriotic song, Rule Britannia, which is still frequently sung, notably at the Last Night of the Proms; and also his musical settings of songs from the plays of William Shakespeare. ... William Boyce (September 1, 1711 – February 7, 1779) is widely regarded as one of the most important English-born composers of the 18th century. ... John Stanley could be John Stanley (c. ... The Empfindsamer Stil (literally sensitive style) was a style of musical writing developed in Germany which reflects a sentimental or sensitive style. ... Sturm und Drang (literally: storm and stress) was a Germany literary movement that developed during the latter half of the 18th century. ...

References

Daniel Heartz and Bruce Allen Brown, 'Galant', New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 31 May, 2005, <http://www.grovemusic.com>

Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 5th edition. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.)