Background Information & Performance Circumstances
Sweelinck lived and worked in the Netherlands, across the late 16th and early 17th century. He composed much vocal music, both secular and sacred, some music for lute, and a lot of music for keyboard.
The Pavana was likely to have been composed circa 1600.
The Pavana is an adaptation of John Dowland's material 'Flow my tears', and probably the lute version 'Lachrimae Pavan' - he sometimes simply transcribes the music for a different instruments, and also embellishes and elaborates the original material, creating a variation.
Sweelinck is more of an arranger of the piece, rather than a composer.
There are 6 sections to the piece, three being arrangements of the original music, and the other three being variations of these arrangements.
The music was intended for harpsichord, although nowadays the music is played on the organ, which works well with the long sustained notes.
The Pavana was likely written for domestic or education use, and although its title suggests a slow dance, it is unlikely to have been used for dancing.
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Performing Forces and their Handling.
Probably composed for single manual harpsichords.
The range is 3 octaves, from G (bottom line of bass stave) to G three octaves above.
Sweelinck uses the top G only once, in bar 96, for climactic intent.
The limited range reflects the limited range of the originals, and also the need for the texture to be manageable by one pair of hands.
Sweelinck's bass is sometimes an octave higher than Dowland's, e.g. bars 39-42, and 44-48.
He puts the borrowed melody an octave above middle C occasionally, which is an octave higher than it would have sounded in the originals.
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