Elizabethan London reveled in Italian musical fashions, but made them its own. The dance known as the pavan, for instance, arrived in England by the 1530s or 1540s. The dance, perhaps of Paduan origin, frequently consisted (in Italian hands) of extended variations upon a ground bass; it was an entry dance and a processional. The English court adopted it eagerly; contemporary accounts speak of the queen and courtiers taking the opening moments of a dance to Be Seen in their new finery. The musical form was changing, however. By the end of the century, English musicians had created a new form for the pavan, consisting of two or three repeated strains; the strains could be almost any regular length, as long as the dancers could follow regular patterns of two. Though all pavans for dancing were as stately as possible, some of the instrumental versions appearing at the time could be stylized character pieces. John Dowland's so-called Piper's Pavan provides an interesting example.

The piece was apparently widely known and quite popular, though unless it be the same Captaine Digorie Piper for whom Dowland also wrote a galliard, the original dedicatee is unknown. The overall pace of the composition must remain slow and stately, for each repetition of the three strains involves extremely fast ornamental notes. The phrase lengths are not exactly regular, though all proceed in patterns of two, with some clever conceits. In the first strain, for instance, Dowland evades an otherwise lucid D cadence to B flat; the repeat of the strain, though encrusted with flying runs in the highest voice, repeats the clear approach and sudden evasion. B flat remains harmonically important in the middle strain, while its repeat features tiny but effective chromatic shadings of the ornamental passages. The third strain presents two further musical contrasts: a complete pause on the opening (B flat) chord both in the first instance and in the repeat, and a triadic sequence at the heart of the strain. This motive even suggests echoes of piping as an underlying character for the composition.

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