English Lute Research Articles

The Mathew Holmes Manuscripts I: Cambridge University Library MS Dd.2.11 (review)

FACSIMILE OF A LUTE MANUSCRIPT The Mathew Holmes Manuscripts I: Cambridge University Library MS Dd.2.11. Two vols. and supplement in slipcase. Inventory and Bibliography: John H. Robinson. Commentary: Stewart McCoy. Image Processing: Craig Hartley. Co-ordination and Typesetting: Ian Harwood. (Lute Society Facsimiles, 7.) Guildford: Lute Society, 2010. [Vol. 1: Contents, p. iii-vii; color facsimile, p. 1-200. Vol. 2: Introd., p. 1-8; inventory, p. 9-26; commentary, p. 27-62; bibliog., p. 63-70. Tablature supplement: p. 1-8. ISBN 978 0 905655 71 0. £75.00.]For English readers, there are two main scholarly societies dedicated to the lute and similar instruments: the Lute Society of America, and its older British counterpart called simply The Lute Society. This is the seventh volume in the latter's Lute Society Facsimiles series, which began in 1987 with Partie in B flat Major for 11-Course Baroque Lute: Facsimile of a Manuscript (c. 1720) by Wolff Jakob Lauffensteiner (1676-1754). This first volume was edited by English lute scholar Robert Spencer (1932-1997), to whom the present volume is dedicated. The series continued in 2000 with volume 2: Krakow Mus. Ms. 40641 (ex Berlin) also edited by Spencer, and then four important English lute sources: volume 3 (2003): The FolgerDowland Manuscript (now at the Folger Shakespeare Library, MS V.b.280, with music by John Dowland but no longer thought to be in his hand; volume 4 (2004): The Welde Lute Book (now in the private library of Lord Forester at Willey Park, Shropshire; volume 5 (2007): Osborn fb7 (Yale University Music Library MS 13); and volume 6 (2008): The Wick- hambrook Lute Manuscript (Yale University Music Deposit), all with detailed critical notes and introductions. The series contin- ues here with one of the largest and most important English lute manuscripts, Cambridge University Library MS Dd.2.11.The facsimile contains three separate en- cased parts: (1) the full-color facsimile it- self, with over 200 pages, just slightly smaller than the original, which is 350 mm tall by 229 mm wide; (2) a second volume entitled Introduction, Inventory, Com- mentary, Bibliography by the English scholars John H. Robinson and Stewart McCoy; and (3) a short eight-page supple- ment in tablature clarifying illegible parts of the facsimile. Since this last part contains fragments of music difficult to read in the original, librarians would be wise to bind it separately from the facsimile volume so that both can be open and consulted at the same time. And obviously this is a volume for lutenists: the music is in French lute tablature with no effort to transcribe any- thing into modern notation. Those who cannot read tablature will have to tran- scribe or find editions of separate pieces elsewhere, although given the number of major composers represented, there are quite a few works here that are available in modern editions. Certainly the thirty-eight pieces by John Dowland, including such fa- vorites as Melancholy Galliard, Lachrimae Pavan, Orlando Sleepeth, and several well- known fantasias, are readily available in Diana Poulton's and Basil Lam's edition of his complete works for lute (The Collected Lute Music of John Dowland [London: Faber Music, 1974]). Other composers present in this large collection of 324 separate works include almost all the major English lutenists: John Johnson, Francis Cutting, Anthony Holborne, Richard Allison, and others (only Robert Johnson and Daniel Bacheler appear to be missing), as well as major contemporaneous continental fig- ures such as Emanuel Adriaensen and Matthaus Waissel. Italian and German lutenists from earlier generations, among them Francesco da Milano, Joan Maria da Crema, and Melchior Neusidler, are also represented. In addition, the manuscript is the major source for an instrument closely related to the lute: the bandora, a metal- strung chordophone with an unusual and immediately recognizable tuning (C1-D1- G1-C-E-A). …

Performing Voices in the English Lute Song

This article discusses the relationships between lyric and music through the intersection of the two in the English lute song. The article argues that musical content complicates lyric voices because musical voices allow multiple interpretations of the text to occur simultaneously without one interpretation of the text necessarily privileged over the others. This polyphony can result in an undermining or even fracturing of the lyric "I."

A mangled chime: the accidental death of the opera libretto in Civil War England

Early 17th-century English lute song represents a perfect fusion of words and music, simultaneously conceived by poets and composers with a deep instinctive understanding of each other’s business. This is a critical commonplace with heavy implications for performers. To avoid distracting attention away from the words, musical settings were kept as simple as possible. To facilitate simple strophic setting the poets made sure that each stanza of a multi-stanza poem followed the same metrical scheme, and they naturally assumed that composers would follow it too. The Golden Age achievement relied on collective self-restraint (not too much self-expression or ‘interpretation’ therefore); and when Henry Lawes and other cavalier composers of masque songs and masque-inspired opera abandoned that restraint the Golden Age was over. Henry Purcell had to start again from scratch. Little of this turns out to be true. ‘A mangled chime’ looks again at the relationship between words and music in 17th-century England, suggesting a more complicated system of interplay between the two. Compositional technique was a mystery to most lyricists even at the height of the Golden Age, and as the century unfolded they found words matching the formal ambitions of contemporary theatre composers harder and harder to write. By 1680–90 (the decade of Venus and Adonis and Dido and Aeneas) the result was a peculiarly English approach to word-setting in which musical sound, though it echoed poetical sense, frequently obliterated poetic structure; a theory of English opera thoroughly confused in its aesthetic aims; and (in consequence) an uncoordinated response to opera seria when the Italian invasion began soon afterwards. Because Golden Age reserve inhibited frank negotiation between composers and poets it masked the composers’ textual needs in dramatic rather than lyrical situations and it led—via hugely resourceful but non-confrontational Lawes—to the overthrow of native English opera a century later

Lessons for the Lute, and: Duets from the Phalese Anthologies, and: Lute Duets, and: Duets by Francesco da Milano and Joanne Matelart, and: Five Duets from "Fronimo" (1584), and: Suite for 2 Lutes, and: Lute Music, and: Complete Works, and: English Lute Song before Dowland, and: Eight Pieces for the Ten-Course Lute, and: The Moscow "Weiss" Manuscript (review)

Lessons for the Lute. A book of intermediate pieces selected and fully fingered by Anthony Bailes & Anne van Royen. (The Lute Society Music Editions.) Rev. ed. Albury, Guildford, England: The Lute Society, 1995, c1983. [Introd., P. 1-2; fingering signs, p. 3-4; edition (tablature), p. 3-39; commentary, p. 40-41. ISBN 0-905655-03-6. [pound]3.] Duets from the Phalese Anthologies. Nine duets for lutes of equal pitch (Nos. 1-9); Nine duets for lutes a tone apart (nos. 10-18). Edited by Lynda Sayce. [Oxford, England]: Sul Tasto Publications; distributed by The Lute Society, c1991. [Introd., 7 p.; lute 1 pt., 26 p. and lute 2 Pt. [pound]15.] Wolf Heckel. Lute Duets. Edited by Lynda Sayce. [Oxford, England]: Sul Tasto Publications; distributed by The Lute Society, c1993. [Vol. 1:12 duets for fourth-apart lutes. Introd., 4 p.; discant pt., 19 p. and tenor pt. [pound]15.] Duets by Francesco da Milano and Joanne Matelart. Transcribed and edited by Gordon Gregory. (The Lute Society Music Editions.) Albury, Guildford, England: The Lute Society, c1997. [Notes, p. iii; lute 1 pt., p. 1-7; textual commentary, P. 8-11 and lute 2 pt. with a recently discovered duet by Da Milano inserted. ISBN 0-905655-08-7. [pound]6.] Vincentio Galilei. Five Duets from Fronimo (1584). Edited by Lynda Sayce. [Oxford, England]: Sul Tasto Publications; distributed by The Lute Society, c1990. [Introd., 1 p.; lute 2 pt., 7 p. and lute 1 Pt. [pound]6.] E. G. Baron. Suite for 2 Lutes. Edited by Lynda Sayce. [Oxford, England]: Sul Tasto Publications; distributed by The Lute Society, c1991. [Introd., 3 p.; lute 1 pt., 5 p. and lute 2 Pt. [pound]6.] Philip Rosseter. Lute Music. Edited by Robert Spencer and revised by John H. Robinson and Steward McCoy. (The Lute Society Music Editions.) Albury, Guildford, England: The Lute Society, c1998. [Facsims., p. iv (and interspersed throughout); introd. material (introd.; index of sources; editorial method; acknowledgments; inventory with concordances and notes; other music by Rosseter), p. v-xiv; edition (tablature), 21 p. (some with fold-outs) and inserted supplement (conflations from variant sources made by Robert Spencer), 10 p. Spiral bound. ISBN 0-905655-13-3. [pound]5.] John Danyel. Complete Works. Edited by Martin Shepherd. (The Lute Society Music Editions.) Albury, Guildford, England: The Lute Society, c1997. [Vol. 1: Lute Music. Facsim., p. iv; introd., index of sources, editorial method, acknowledgments, p. v-vi; inventory with concordances and notes, p. vii-ix; edition (tablature), p. 2-21 and lute II pt. (1 p.). Spiral bound. ISBN 0-905655-13-3. [pound]8.] The English Lute Song before Dowland. Edited and transcribed by Christopher Goodwin. (The Lute Society Music Editions.) Albury, Guildford, England: The Lute Society, c1997-98. [Vol. 1: Songs from the Dallis Manuscript. [Introd. material (introd.; editorial notes; references; acknowledgments; translations), p. 2-10; score, 45 p. (some with foldouts) and inserted addenda, 1 p. Spiral bound. ISBN 0-905655-01-X. Vol. 2: Songs from the Additional Manuscript 4900 and Other Early Sources. [Introd. material (gen. introd.; commentary; editorial principles; acknowledgments, translations), p. 2-8; score, p. 11-50 (some with foldouts). Spiral bound. ISBN 0-905655-07-9. [pound]12.] Cuthbert Hely. Eight Pieces for the Ten-Course Lute. Edited and transcribed by Matthew Spring. (The Lute Society Music Editions.) Albury, Guildford, England: The Lute Society, c1993. [Introd., 2 p.; score, 14 p. and inserted tablature (12 p.). ISBN 0-905655-04-4. [pound]9.] The Moscow Weiss Manuscript: M. I. Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture, MS 282/8, formerly at the P. I. Tchaikowsky State Conservatory, MS 297. Transcribed and edited by Tim Crawford. Facsimile and transcription. (Monuments of the Lutenist Art, 1.) Columbus, Ohio: Editions Orphee (Presser), 1995. [Introd. material (pref. …

Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation

1. An invitation to the fifteenth-century plectrum lute: the Pesaro manuscript Vladimir Ivanoff 2. Lute tablature instructions in Italy: a survey of the Regole from 1507 to 1759 Dinko Fabris 3. The performance context of the English lute song, 1596 to 1622 Daniel Fischlin 4. Per cantare e sonare: lute song at the end of the sixteenth century Kevin Mason 5. Authority, autonomy, and interpretation in performing seventeenth-century Italian lute music Victor Coelho 6. The soul of the lute: performance in the style brise Wallace Rave 7. The vihuela: performance practice, style, and context John Griffiths 8. Performing seventeenth-century Italian guitar music: the question of an appropriate stringing Gary Boye 9. Essential issues in performance practices of the Classical guitar, 1779-1840 Richard Savino.

MUSIC

Journal Article MUSIC Get access English Lute Songs 1 & 2 Chosen and introduced by Michael Pilkington Stainer & Bell, London 1984(E3.95 each Christopher R. Wilson Christopher R. Wilson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume 13, Issue 1, February 1985, Pages 110–112, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/13.1.110 Published: 01 February 1985

Recordings

Journal Article Recordings Get access Elizabethan Social Music ENGLISH CONSORTS, LUTE DUETS AND SOLOS London Early Music Group, directed by James TylerSaga 5479 Music by John Dowland Extempore String Ensemble Hyperion A66010 JOHN MILSOM JOHN MILSOM Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume 10, Issue 2, April 1982, Pages 274–277, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/10.2.274 Published: 01 April 1982

John Dowland and English lute music

About 50 sources of English lute music survive from the period 1550-1630, almost all in manuscript, containing nearly 3,000 pieces for lute solo. The quality is uneven, ranging from near-mindless jottings of a doodling beginner (though it is good that they survive to afford important insights that would otherwise be unknown) to Dowland's 'Farewell Fancy'. This rich repertoire, known as the 'Golden Age of English Lute Music' in the 1950s when samplings were first presented, is not only the golden age but the only age of English lute music, tor nothing survives before 1550 and only isolated scraps after 1630---with all due respect to Thomas Mace! At the moment it is an unanswered enigma that so little of this excellent repertoire was published in its own time-indeed there is only one work which presents the cream of solo lute music, Robert Dowland's Varietie of Lute Lessons, 1610, containing a selection of some of the best English and continental composers. The equally rich virginal school, however, faired worse by having even less in print, in marked contrast with a near-glut of publications of lute songs and madrigals, including several which cannot have had high sales. The manuscript sources fall generally into three categories: lute books compiled by professional scribes for wealthy amateur players, usually containing a selection from the stock repertoire; lute books compiled by amateurs themselves (sometimes only semi-literate when notating music) whose repertoire includes items from stock as well as little exercises, half-remembered pieces, folk tunes, mask tunes, etc.; lute books compiled by professional lutenists or very adept amateurs which usually contain music of a high standard, both from stock and from less usual sources. The majority of the lute books belong closest to the last category. The 'stock repertoire' needs defining. A corpus of lute music existed which was so popular that whenever a scribe (whoever he was) sat down to compile a lute book, certain evergreens were almost bound to be included. These pieces sometimes appear in variant forms--often mistakes and all are copied from a previous source. Between 100-130 pieces circulated in this way and, as one would expect from their contemporary popularity, they are usually very good. Just as there is hardly a lute book which does not contain something of the stock repertoire, so there is hardly a collection which does not include something by John Dowland. The source list in the Collected Lute Music shows about three-quarters of all that survive. Dowland undoubtedly dominated, both in a popular and a real artistic sense. Inevitably, many tavourites appear in several variant versions-no one piece necessarily having supremacy over others, for it is usually quite impossible to decide on the pristine Dowland version. He may indeed not have had one for he was closer to a living, improvising tradition than we are and despite his well-known complaint 115

English Lute

English Lute

English Lute

English Lute

Alfonso Ferrabosco and the Lyra Viol

Abstract The solo music for viol is the last great treasure of English 16th- and 17th-century music to be explored. The manuscript Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, greatest of all anthologies of keyboard music, first appeared in print in 1899, followed by the other collections, My Lady Nevells Booke and two reliable reprints of Parthenia. During the next thirty years the bulk of the vocal music, sacred and secular, was printed, much of the church music for the first time; outstanding in this field are the ten bulky volumes of Tudor Church Music (and the more manageable offprints from this series in octavo); Dr. Edmund Fellowes' wonderful collections, The English Madrigal School and The English School of Lutenist Song Writers; and his complete edition of the works of William Byrd. In 1939 Richard Newton mapped out a new field with his paper, read to the Royal Musical Association in London, ‘English Lute Music of the Golden Age’, and this music was subsequently catalogued by David Lumsden; some prints of the music and some fine players of the lute have since appeared. Good performances of English consort music for viols are now occasionally to be heard, and Volume IX of Music Britannica, devoted to Jacobean consort music, is one of the most valuable and the most used of the set.

Francis cutting, lutenist

Abstract The neglect of Elizabethan and Jacobean English lute music as a subject of study, publication and performance has tended to obscure the importance not only of the music itself but also of those composers who practised in it exclusively. In a list of the principal English composers of solo lute music the names that would be most familiar today would be those of the composers who happened to work in other fields as well, principally Dowland, Robert Johnson, Holborne, Pilkington, Morley and Philips. Francis Cutting, who left behind nothing but lute music (plus two pieces for bandora) and Daniel Batchelor, who left only one song and some consort parts in addition to his solo music for lute, have become hardly more than names in the encyclopedia. (Batchelor, in fact, has not yet achieved an entry in Grove.) But if we take as a measure of their contemporary fame the quantity of music copied into the surviving manuscripts of the day or published in the few printed collections of English lute music, Cutting and Batchelor stand, ahead of any in the list just given except Dowland and Holborne; Cutting, the subject of this study, stands ahead of all but Dowland.

REVIEWS OF RECORDS

Journal Article REVIEWS OF RECORDS Get access THE GOLDEN AGE OF ENGLISH LUTE MUSIC. Julian Bream, lute. RCA Victor LD-2560. CHARLES CANFIELD BROWN CHARLES CANFIELD BROWN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Musical Quarterly, Volume XLIX, Issue 1, January 1963, Pages 130–132, https://doi.org/10.1093/mq/XLIX.1.130 Published: 01 January 1963

English Lute Music, 1540–1620—An Introduction

The madrigalists and virginalists of Elizabethan and Jacobean England have been known and admired ever since the great work of Fuller-Maitland, Barclay Squire, Dolmetsch, van den Borren and Fellowes (to mention only the most important); yet until now the equally accomplished and even more extensive school of lutenist composers has never been systematically studied. The nearest approach to such a study was made by Richard Newton in an unpublished B.Litt. thesis and in a paper derived from the thesis which he read to the Musical Association in 1939, entitled ‘English Lute Music of the Golden Age’. Although his study represents much thorough research, only the bare outlines of his findings have appeared in print.

An Anthology of English Lute Music (16th Century)

An Anthology of English Lute Music (16th Century)

An Anthology of English Lute Music, 16th Century

An Anthology of English Lute Music, 16th Century

An Anthology of English Lute Music (Sixteenth Century)

An Anthology of English Lute Music (Sixteenth Century)

English Lute Music of the Golden Age

The music we are going to hear this evening is really the fulfilment of a desire expressed by this Association nearly thirty-one years ago. After a paper on the subject of lute-music by Miss Janet Dodge, Mr. James Matthew said: “We were many of us rather hoping we might have the pleasure of hearing the actual instrument,” and Dr. Southgate added “We should of course have liked to hear the lute.” But in those days much patient effort had still to be made before the art of lute-playing (distinct from a kind of bastard imitation on the guitar) could be said to have been fully recovered; and so they had to be content with a piano. Even to-day, the sound of the lute will be strange and unknown to most of us here; and as I am convinced that any critical discussion of music for an unknown instrument can only be misleading, I have asked Mrs. Poulton to play the very generous programme you have before you, in the hope that you will be able to gain some clear idea how this music really sounded at the hands of its composers.