Jacques Gallot, called ‘le vieux Gallot de Paris,’ was a French lutenist and composer born around 1625 and thought to have died around 1695 in Paris. He came from a family of Parisian lutenists, probably the son of the lutenist Antoine Gallot, who served at the Polish court until 1647, and was the brother of the fellow lutenist Alexandre Gallot. Jacques Gallot studied with Ennemond Gaultier. His major surviving publication, Pièces de luth composées sur différents modes, appeared in 1684, dedicated to the Vice Admiral Victor-Marie d’Estrées, though the pieces it contains were likely composed over some thirty years. Following his death, the lutenist Robert de Visée composed a tombeau in Gallot’s memory.

Jacques Gallot was among the principal developers of the tombeau and the musical ‘portrait’ as lute genres, producing character pieces evoking named individuals such as La Fontange and La Montespan alongside tombeaux for Turenne and Condé. His 1684 collection preserves the late flowering of the French style brisé, and one of his pieces was later orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi in the suite Gli Uccelli, carrying his idiom into the 20th-century concert hall.

Sources:

• https://sites.google.com/view/another-lute-website/g/jacques-gallot