Show THE GAVOTTE The gavotte more modern though in the present day quite as old fashioned aa the minuet J belongs to the last daya of the French monarchy mon-archy which it survived to become for a time the favorite dance of the Merveilleuses and the lucroy ablea of the Directory Like BO many other dances it is of national or rather local origin and takes its name from Gap whose inhabitants called gavots and gavottes say that their little town is at equal distance dis-tance from Geneaa Lyons Turin Avignon and Marseilles The gavotte was introduced as a pendent pend-ent to the minuet probably at a time when people were beginning to get tired of the more ancient dance from which it differs in the first place by being danced to music in twofour instead of like the minuet in thrte four time Aa a musical form it has never possessed for composers the same attraction as the minuet though of late years it has been cultivated to some extent by composers who seeking seek-ing for the new have only been able to find it in a revival of the ol J Every one baa heard at orchestral concerts the minuets and gavottes of Bocoberini and there ie i a charming example of the gavotte in Ambrose Thomass opera of Mignon The gavotte was first brought into general favor by Marie Antoinette who danced it at court as a oequc1 1 to the minuet Hence the name menuet de la cour given to the two dances considered con-sidered as one It was replaced for a time during the Reign of Terror by the more lively Carmagnole and I though it flourished again in the luxurious Jays of the Directory it i died out under the Empire which was not indeed a dancing but a fighting fight-ing period I English Illustrated Magazine |