Tambourin


The tambourin is a Provençal dance accompanied by lively duple meter music. It is so named because the music imitates a drum. This was played together with a small flute known as the galoubet or flaviol.
Jean-Philippe Rameau included tambourins in many of his operas, such as Platée, Les Indes galantes, and Les fêtes d'Hébé. The last gained more fame in a keyboard arrangement from the E minor suite of his Pièces de Clavecin. The tambourin was popular throughout the 18th century and can be found in Handel's Alcina and Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide, among others.