Lute Music of the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries

Abstract

To attempt in the short space of an hour a clear and adequate account of lute music in Europe during the centuries in which it was most active and influential, is a task that might frighten away the most sanguine student, especially when we consider how great the difficulties have been, and still are, which stand in the way of any wide and intimate knowledge of it. Difficulties which in the past have prevented some of the most learned and painstaking musical archaeologists from arriving at anything but a very general survey of the field, cannot be entirely overcome even at the present stage of research, and it is only with the utmost diffidence that this attempt can be made to put together the detached fragments of an art that has been dead nearly 150 years. The greatest handicap of all in acquiring the necessary knowledge of lute music is, of course, the tablature with which lutenists, with a strange perversity, chose to record their achievements. It takes on an average about five times as long to decipher a page of ordinary lute tablature as it does to copy one of ordinary notation. Moreover, unlike notation, it cannot be understood without deciphering, so that hours are frequently wasted over works which in the end turn out little worth the time and trouble. Sometimes, too, misprints render the labour futile; and sometimes, when we are dealing with 17th century lute music, much time is spent in finding the proper tuning wherewith to transcribe. No wonder then that there is a pitiful lack of material upon which to base any final judgments of the music or of its composers. There have been, indeed, some modern reprints of lute music, some attempts at a reconstruction of individual lutenists, and diligent search will reveal a considerable literature on the subject of a detached and unsystematized kind. In Italy and Germany especially much has been done in this way, and it is chiefly to these labours that we owe any slight acquaintance with composers for the instrument who are not represented in English libraries. But it needs a thoroughly organized system of combined research in all countries finally to make possible a knowledge of the vast bulk of lute music that exists, and until the results of such a system are made public, any general view must be full of shortcomings. There is at present, recently formed, under the wing of the International Musical Society, a Commission for this special purpose, and it is hoped that time will reveal the value of the work it has taken in hand.