ABSTRACT
The earliest published continental source of the pavan is Dalza's Intabulatura de lauto, which contains five pavane alla venetiana and four pavane alla ferrarese. Exactly when the dance and its music arrived in England is open to debate, but the Emperor Charles V performed the new-fangled dance on his visit to Henry VIII in Windsor in 1522. It was during the last quarter of the sixteenth century that the pavan really came of age as a piece of serious art music for English composers, whether writing for keyboard, lute or consort. A further indication of the pavan's coming of age as a vehicle for artistic enterprise is a network of musical connections that can be traced between different composers' work in the years around 1600. One of the last English composers to exploit the opportunities provided by the pavan for the 'art and profundity' that so appealed to Thomas Mace was Thomas Tomkins.
