Walter van Hauwe - Blockflutes 3: The Early Seventeenth Century (1992)

An important part of European music at the time of the Renaissance was the art of varfattsn. One need only recall the virtoostic art of ornamentatioo practised in Italy, or Spanish composers such as Cahezon, Milan, Mudarra or Ortia, with their diferencias, recercaden and glosas. The sources were very often folksongs and folk dances, from whose originally improvised accompaniments instrumental forms developed, such as diferencias over well-known folk tones, or variations based on dance forms, like the pavan, passamezzo or the follia, among others. The variation technique which, in the school of English virginal composers was further developed and brought to a new golden age, is the division or diminution in the broadest sense- and ornamentation by which each tone in the theme returns in the division surrounded by other tones. The origin of the division is to be sought in the art of improvisation on the one hand, and on the other in the various variation forms which were experimented with in the 16th century, particularly in Spain, Italy and Germany.