Advanced Higher - Pavan & Galliard

Renaissance Dances: Pavan(e) & Galliard

In the Renaissance era, people liked to dance. So when music was not being written to praise God at Sunday Mass, the party animal composers would write music for people to dance to.

The dances that were most popular from the time, (and conveniently, are on the SQA Advanced Music list) were the Pavan and the Galliard.


Let's keep things simple here, because they really are.

A Pavane is a SLOW stately dance with 2 BEATS IN A BAR

A Galliard is a LIVELY dance with 3 BEATS IN A BAR

And what's more - they're related. So what would normally happen, is a Pavan would be played first,

followed by a Galliard.

Here is a Pavane: Can you feel the 2 beats in the bar pulse?

It's not as simple as it might seem. Instrumental dances follow a specific type of phrasing - can you hear how the music is chunked up into little "lines" or "phrases", and the player can use a bit of rubato and leaves pauses between some? It's also pretty slow.

Keeping the beat to a Pavane is not as simple as counting to 2 over and over again. You must really listen to how the melody fits - and to make sure you understand that, listen now to a Galliard, and try to really settle into the "feel" of a 3 beats in the bar Galliard, in contrast to the 2 beat Pavane.

Here is a Galliard: Can you feel the 3 beat pulse?

        This is also pretty slow in terms of pulse. These dances weren't upbeat. Click through to youtube, and search them up. You'll see Renaissance fanatics all dressed up doing the actual steps. Often the musicians would do the dance as they played. Maybe that's why they were so slow? Gave them a chance to hit the right notes?

See what you think.

(You'll notice I spell Pavane with an E at the end - it's what I'm used to. It isn't wrong. You choose what you prefer - Pavan or Pavane.)