Gervaise's extant output consists of
chansons, mostly for three or four voices, and instrumental music, mostly dances. He appears to have written no sacred music at all, an unusual omission for a composer of the time. In addition to being a composer, he appears to have been an innovator in notation of instrumental music: in an instruction manual for the
viol (1548, now lost), he is known to have produced the first viol
tablature in France. His chansons are freely composed, and are mostly settings of long poems (for example
huitans). He published a collection of twenty chansons for four voices in 1541. The remaining chansons, for three voices, are arrangements of his previous pieces for four; this collection came out in 1550. Stylistically, all are typical of French chanson composition of the 1540s: polyphonic but concise. His instrumental music is the most famous portion of his output. Most of his music is in four parts, and is intended for dancing. The principal forms employed are the
pavane,
galliarde, and
branle; and the varieties of the branle are the
courant,
gay and
simple. One of his pavanes, the
Pavane passemaize, incorporates the famous
passamezzo antico bass line. The melodies are simple in his instrumental music, and the texture is almost always
homophonic, making the music ideal for dancing. ==See also==