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This work is an outstanding example of Britten's work for solo instruments and also of his work for specific virtuoso performers. Composed for the master British guitarist Julian Bream in 1963, the Nocturnal holds a key place among the masterpieces of twentieth-century guitar music. The work's formal structure is of a set of variations on a theme by John Dowland, a sixteenth-century English composer best known for his lute songs, whom Britten held in high regard. Bream had recently brought the lute music of Dowland back to audiences through performance (Bream was also an accomplished player of this ancient instrument); the marriage of all these elements in a single work was a good one.
The "air" of Dowland, from which the theme comes, is entitled "Come, heavy sleep." Britten had recently completed another meditation on this subject in his Night Music (Notturno) for solo piano (also 1963; no opus number). In Nocturnal, Britten creates an environment that is both dreamlike and melancholic, using the unique sonorities of the solo guitar with masterful grace and insight. The variations make use of the theme to conjure images of a tortured, sleepless night, only to finally yield to sleep's sweet repose, represented by the statement of Dowland's melody, with its original harmonization. Britten had used the work of John Dowland once before in another piece, the Lachrymae, op. 48 (1950), for viola and piano. But here, the melancholy perceived by Britten in Dowland's music is brought even farther forward, to produce a work of real refinement for an instrument that is among the more difficult for which to compose idiomatic music.
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