Pavane No. 6 (from El Maestro)

Luis de Milan's El Maestro (1536) is the earliest printed collection of music specifically for solo vihuela -- the Spanish predecessor of the guitar -- and contains some of the most direct and beautiful music in the entire early guitar repertoire. The sixth Pavane is particularly celebrated for its elegant stepwise melody, its clear tonal architecture in E minor, and its expressive simplicity that speaks as freshly today as it did in Renaissance Castile. Guitarists typically perform it with a small amount of ornamentation and a tempo that breathes naturally; it serves both as an accessible entry point to Renaissance music and as a meditation on musical essentials that no amount of sophistication can improve. Luis de Milan was also a poet, scholar, and courtier in Valencia.