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{{Short description|1750s–1770s Western European music style}}
{{Use shortened footnotes|date=April 2021}}
{{History of Western art music}}
In music, '''galant''' refers to the [[composition school|style]] which was fashionable in the upper-class societies of [[Western Europe]] from the 1720s to the 1770s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, [[musicologists]] gave the term a narrower meaning. They used it to describe compositions that moved away from the Baroque's rhetorical formal style, but only partly showed traits of the pre-classical period. The galant style can be seen as a step towards the formally freer, sensitive style, ''[[Empfindsamkeit (music)|Empfindsamkeit]],'' that prepared the early classical period.

== Music styles ==
This movement featured a return to simplicity and immediacy of appeal after the complexity of the late [[Baroque music|Baroque]] era. This meant simpler, more song-like melodies, decreased use of [[polyphony]], short, periodic phrases, a reduced harmonic vocabulary emphasizing [[Tonic (music)|tonic]] and [[Dominant (music)|dominant]], and a clear distinction between [[Soloist (music)|soloist]] and [[accompaniment (music)|accompaniment]]. [[Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach]] and [[Daniel Gottlob Türk]], who were among the most significant theorists of the late 18th century, contrasted the galant with the "learned" or "strict" styles.{{sfn|Bach|1753|loc=passim}}{{sfn|Türk|1789|p=405}}

The German ''[[empfindsamer Stil]]'',  which seeks to express personal emotions and sensitivity, can be seen as a closely related North-German dialect of the international galant style.{{sfn|Heartz and Brown|2001a}}{{sfn|Heartz and Brown|2001b}}{{sfn|Palmer|2001|loc=xvii}}{{sfn|Wolf|2003}} 

This musical style was part of the wider [[galant]] movement in art at the time.

The word "galant" derives from French, where it was in use from at least the 16th century. In the early 18th century, a ''galant homme'' described a person of fashion, who was elegant, cultured and virtuous. The German theorist [[Johann Mattheson]] appears to have been fond of the term. It features in the title of his first publication of 1713, ''Das neu-eröffnete ''Orchestre'', oder ''Universelle'' und gründliche Anleitung wie ein ''Galant Homme'' einen vollkommenen Begriff von der Hoheit und Würde der edlen ''Music'' erlangen''. (Instead of the [[Blackletter|Gothic type]] rendered here in italics, Mattheson used [[Roman type|Roman]] to emphasize the many non-German expressions.{{sfn|Mattheson|1713|loc=title page}}{{sfn|Heartz and Brown|2001a}}

Mattheson was apparently the first to refer to a "galant style" in music, in his ''Das forschende Orchestre'' of 1721. He recognized a lighter, modern  style, ''einem galanten Stylo'' and named among its leading practitioners [[Giovanni Bononcini]], [[Antonio Caldara]], [[Georg Philipp Telemann]], [[Alessandro Scarlatti]], [[Antonio Vivaldi]] and [[George Frideric Handel]].{{sfn|Heartz|2003|p=18}} 

Not every contemporary was delighted with this revolutionary simplification: Johann Samuel Petri, in his ''Anleitung zur praktischen Musik'' (1782) spoke of the "great catastrophe in music".{{sfn|Blume|1970|p=20}}

The change was as much at the birth of Romanticism as it was of Classicism. The folk-song element in poetry, like the singable ''cantabile'' melody in galant music, was brought to public notice in [[Thomas Percy (bishop of Dromore)|Thomas Percy]]'s ''[[Reliques of Ancient Poetry]]'' (1765) and [[James Macpherson]]'s "[[Ossian]]" inventions during the 1760s.

This simplified style was melody-driven, not constructed on rhythmic or melodic [[Motif (music)|motifs]] as so much classical music was to be: "It is indicative that Haydn, even in his old age, is reported to have said, 'If you want to know whether a melody is really beautiful, sing it without accompaniment{{'"}}.{{sfn|Blume|1970|p=19}} This simplification also extended to [[harmonic rhythm]], which is generally slower in galant music than is the case in the earlier baroque style, thus making lavish melodic ornamentation and nuances of secondary harmonic colorings more important.{{sfn|Palmer|2001|loc=xvii}}

The affinities of galant style with [[Rococo]] in the visual arts are easily overplayed, but characteristics that were valued in both genres were freshness, accessibility and charm. [[Watteau]]'s ''fêtes galantes'' were rococo not merely in subject matter, but also in the lighter, cleaner tonality of his palette, and the glazes that supplied a galant translucency to his finished pictures often compared to the orchestrations of galant music.{{sfn|Heartz|2003|loc={{Page needed|date=April 2013}}}}

== See also ==

* [[Empfindsamkeit (music)]]
* [[Galant Schemata|Galant schemata]]

==References==
{{reflist|15em}}

'''Sources'''
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Bach|1753}}|reference=[[Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach|Bach, Carl Phillip Emanuel]]. 1753. ''Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, mit Exempeln und achtzehn Probe-Stücken in sechs Sonaten erläutert''. 2 vols. Berlin: In verlegung des auctoris, gedruckt bey C. F. Henning.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Blume|1970}}|reference=[[Friedrich Blume|Blume, Friedrich]]. 1970. ''Classic and Romantic Music: A Comprehensive Survey'', translated by M. D. Herter Norton. New York: W. W. Norton. {{ISBN|9780393021370}} (cloth); {{ISBN|9780393098686}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Heartz|2003}}|reference=[[Daniel Heartz|Heartz, Daniel]]. 2003. ''Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720&ndash;1780''. New York: W. W. Norton. {{ISBN|9780393050806}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Heartz and Brown|2001a}}|reference=Heartz, Daniel, and Bruce Alan Brown. 2001a. "Empfindsamkeit". ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', second edition, edited by [[Stanley Sadie]] and [[John Tyrrell (musicologist)|John Tyrrell]]. London: Macmillan Publishers.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Heartz and Brown|2001b}}|reference=Heartz, Daniel, and Bruce Allen Brown. 2001b. "Galant'. ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Mattheson|1713}}|reference=[[Johann Mattheson|Mattheson, Johann]]. 1713. ''Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, oder Universelle und gründliche Anleitung wie ein Galant Homme einen vollkommenen Begriff von der Hoheit und Würde der edlen Music erlangen'' [The Newly Inaugurated Orchestra, or Universal and Fundamental Guide Showing How the Galant Man May Acquire a Perfect Notion of the Majesty and Worth of the Noble Art of Music], with added remarks by Reinhard Keiser. Hamburg: Benjamin Schiller.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Palmer|2001}}|reference=Palmer, Kris. 2001. ''Ornamentation According to C. P. E. Bach and J. J. Quantz''. Bloomington: 1stBooks Library. {{ISBN|9780759609358}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Türk|1789}}|reference=[[Daniel Gottlob Türk|Türk, Daniel Gottlob]]. 1789. ''[https://archive.org/details/klavierschuleode00trkd Klavierschule, oder, Anweisung zum Klavierspielen für Lehrer und Lernende: mit kritischen Anmerkungen]''. Leipzig: Schwickert; Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Wolf|2003}}|reference=Wolf, Eugene K. 2003. "Empfindsam style". ''The Harvard Dictionary of Music'', fourth edition, edited by [[Don Michael Randel]]. Harvard University Press Reference Library 16. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-674-01163-2}}.}}

==Further reading==
* [[Robert Gjerdingen|Gjerdingen, Robert O.]] 2007. ''Music in the Galant Style''. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-531371-0}}.
* [[Donald Jay Grout|Grout, Donald Jay]], and [[Claude V. Palisca]]. 1996. ''A History of Western Music'', fifth edition. New York: W. W. Norton.

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[[Category:Baroque music]]
[[Category:Classical period (music)]]
[[Category:Age of Enlightenment]]
[[Category:Johann Mattheson]]