Nocturnal After John Dowland, Op. 70 is a classical guitar piece composed in 1963 by English composer Benjamin Britten for guitarist Julian Bream. It is considered one of the most influential works written in the twentieth century for the classical guitar.
Julian Bream premiered the piece on 12 June 1964.
Form
The piece is in eight movements as follows:
1. Musingly 2. Very Agitated 3. Restless 4. Uneasy 5. March-like 6. Dreaming 7. Gently Rocking 8. Passacaglia 9. Slow and QuietThe piece is based on Come, Heavy Sleep from John Dowland's "First Book of Songs"(1597). Each movement is a variation progressively closer to the Dowland song which concludes the final movement.
References
Nocturnal after John Dowland Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA