Tag Archives: Cotillion

Gallini’s Additional Tunes

Leave a reply

At the end of the New Collection of Forty-Four Cotillons, Gallini includes ‘Music for Six select Dances, Two of which may be used as Cotillons’. The tunes are individually titled:

Allemande (a cotillon, numbered 45)

Le Prince de Galles (a cotillon, numbered 46)

Le Charmant Vainqueur

La Fourlane Venitienne ou La Barcariuole

Menuet du Dauphin

Le Passe-pied de la Reine

In his Treatise upon Dancing of 1762, Gallini had listed the dances ‘most in request’, although he did not include the allemande. This dance, which had a long history, was enjoying a revival in a new and fashionable form alongside the cotillon.  Gallini did list some titles which dated back to the early 1700s, alongside others which seem to be little more than generic dance types. Among the former are the Bretagne and La Mariée, while the latter include the Forlana and the Passepied. The Menuet du Dauphin is the title of a choreography by the famous French dancing master Marcel, published in notation in Paris in 1765, although Gallini supplies different music. In the late 1760s, other dancing masters advertised a similar repertoire. It is all but impossible to know what choreographies were actually danced. Were amateur dancers still expected to perform dances from the court of Louis XIV in London’s ballrooms? Were fashionable French ballroom duets performed in London as well as Paris?

I will return to dancing masters and their lessons. The survival of dances from an earlier era is a topic for exploration at a later date, as is the allemande.

Gallini’s cotillons

2 Replies

The first, and best-known, of the manuals on the cotillon published in London seems to have been Gallini’s. His A New Collection of Forty-Four Cotillons, appended to his Critical Observations on the Art of Dancing, appeared around 1765. Most of the book is taken up with music and written instructions for the cotillons themselves, but Gallini begins with ‘General Rules’. These aren’t as helpful as they might be since he assumes that would-be dancers are already familiar with the square formation and the numbering of couples around the set. (I write here as a relative newcomer myself to this dance).

He begins by explaining that every cotillon begins with a Grand Rond and that any of another 8 changes may be danced after the figure. Gallini assumes that his readers know the basic structure of the cotillon. He then lists and explains a number of figures and steps – but ‘only those which are used in the following Cotillons’. These are the ones he includes.

Allemande; Assemblé; Balancé; Chaines; Chassé; Contretems;

Moulinet; Pirouette; Poussette; Course or Promenade; Quarrés;

Queue du Chat; Ronds; Rigaudon

It is not surprising that the terminology is entirely French. Indeed, the ‘Frenchness’ of this dance probably added to its appeal in London.

In his instructions for each cotillon (all of which have appealing French titles), Gallini specifies only the opening Grand Rond and then describes the Figure. He does explain the musical structure. In some cotillons, he specifies the use of minuet steps. Some knowledge and interpretation is needed to actually perform these dances.