Ornamentation and the guitar:An overview of Style and technique

This paper is intended to serve as a review of existing literature on the subject of ornamentation in the lute and guitar music of the renaissance, baroque, and early nineteenthcentury.Free ornamentation of renaissance lutenist John Dowland is of special interest toguitarists since his music is a well-established part of the modern guitar concert repertory.Dowland often provides written divisions in his solo lute music, but in cases where he does notthe methods outlined in Christopher Simpson’s The Division Violist (1659)

can serve as a guidefor creating divisions in high renaissance style.  Simpson’s book also provides a convenient framework for the analysis of Dowland’s divisions.  In section two of this paper, I summarize “The Division Violist” and examine John Dowland’s divisions in this light.