A popular Italian dance in quick 3-4 or 6-8 time, running mostly in triplets, but with a hop step at the beginning of each measure. See Tarantella.

(from Italian, "little hop") in music this term is used for a variety of moderatly fast Italian jumping dances, from the fifteenth century usually written in triplet metre, generally with much use of hemiola. Fourteenth-century examples (all in a single manuscript, GB–Lbl Add. MS 29,987) appear in a variety of meters, and are very much like the estampie. Later examples, surviving from as early as ca. 1400, are a type of basse danse. In the sixteenth century, the saltarello is essentially a calmer version of the galliard, and usually is found paired as the triple-meter after dance to a duple-meter dance, most often a pavane or passamezzo. The two dances often share musical material. [SPR; GJC

an energetic triple-metered Italian dance

a gay Italian dance

Italian "jumping dance", often characterized by triplets in a rapid 4/4 time.

(sahl´-tah-rello). A fast Medieval monophonic dance. A fast leaping Renaissance dance, often preceded by a slower passamezzo.

The saltarello was a lively, merry dance first mentioned in Naples during the 13th century. The music survives, but no early instructions for the actual dance are known. It was played in a fast triple meter and is named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare ("to jump").