[1] Gallet was born in Rio de Janeiro to a French-Brazilian father and a French mother and displayed musical talent at a young age, winning the Gold Medal from the Instituto Nacional de Música in 1916.

He began piano playing as a school boy, and first studied and graduated in architecture, before enrolling at the Instituto Nacional de Música to study music with Henrique Oswald, Abdon Milanez and Agnelo França.

In 1922, he started to conduct the choir and the orchestra of the Instituto Nacional de Música and in 1926 he became publisher of the music magazine Weco.

(to fight back) in 1930 to "rescue" Brazilian music and culture from what he saw as popular indifference.

[1] He, along with Mário de Andrade, pioneered the study of Brazilian folk music.