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The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and Its Music
Article in Renaissance Quarterly · November 2004
DOI: 10.2307/1261718
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THE LUTE
IN BRITAIN
A HISTORY OF THE
INSTRUMENT AND ITS MUSIC
BY
MATTHEW SPRING
1
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xiv
List of Tables xviii
List of Musical Examples xx
Note to the Reader xxiv
Abbreviations xxvii
. Introduction
. The Lute in England before
. From Medieval to Renaissance: A Continental Excursus, –
. The Early and Mid-Renaissance Periods (–)
. The Golden Age, Part I (–)
. The Lute in Consort
. The Golden Age, Part II (–)
. The Lute in Song Accompaniment
. From Renaissance to Baroque: A Continental Excursus, –
. The Caroline and Commonwealth Periods (–)
. The Theorbo
. The Decline of the Lute in England after
. Scottish Lute Music
. Postscript
Bibliography
Printed Music
Books, Theses, and Articles
Index
Chapter One
Introduction
Contrary to popular belief, the lute was never the natural instrument of the trou-
badour or trouvère. It does not feature in French or English iconography or litera-
ture before the thirteenth century. This introduction traces the appearance of the
lute before its arrival in northern Europe. It serves to differentiate, at an early stage,
the lute from other popular plucked instruments like the gittern and citole. It is
intended to do no more than lay down some general markers on the early history of
the lute, a huge subject quite outside the scope of this book.
Plucked string instruments with long thin necks and relatively small bodies are
thought to be of considerably greater antiquity than those with short necks.1 Long-
necked lutes are found depicted on Mesopotamian seals dating as far back as the
period – , and appear in ancient Egyptian iconography.2 Such ancient
long-necked lutes have modern-day descendants in the Turkish saz, the Indian
tambura, the Pakistani tanbur, and in many Islamic, African, and Central Asian folk
instruments.3 Short-necked lutes were known in Egyptian times and in classical
antiquity. One of the most successful and long-lasting short-necked lutes is the
Arabic ùd. The exact origins of the ùd are remote and undocumented, but it has
been suggested that it was developed by the Arabs from the Persian barbat during
the seventh to ninth centuries, into a form still recognizable as the ùd today.4 The
pre-Islamic Arab lute had a tapering neck and a small body covered in skin.5
Laurence Picken has suggested that this instrument, in turn, had its origins in the
short-necked lute known to the Central Asian Turco-Mongols of the first-century
kingdom of Kusanas.6
The medieval European lute is closely related to the Arabic ùd, indeed the name
‘lute’ is said to have been derived from the Arabic ‘al ùd’. The word ùd simply
means ‘wood’, the material from which the instrument is made. Many instruments
were made of wood. The name ùd may have come about through a need to high-
light the instrument’s wooden soundboard, so as to distingush it from instruments
1
Diana Poulton, ‘The Early History of the Lute’, JLSA – (–), – at .
2
Harvey Turnbull, ‘The Origin of the Long-Necked Lute’, GSJ (), – at –.
3
Jean L. Jenkins, Musical Instruments (Horniman Museum and Library Publication; London, ), –.
4
Henry G. Farmer, ‘The Origin of the Arabian Lute and Rebec’, Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments
(London, ), –.
5
Jenkins, Musical Instruments, .
6
Laurence Picken, ‘The Origin of the Short Lute’, GSJ (), – at .
Introduction
with fronts made of skin, parchment, or any other material. The centuries after the
rise of Islam (c.) saw a cultivation of the ùd by the Arabs, such that by the tenth
century it had inspired long treatises covering tunings, technique, and musical the-
ory.7 Much work was done by Henry Farmer in the inter-war years on the early
Arabic ùd, its origins, and introduction into Europe.8 Though the subject remains
little understood, there has been a recent revival of interest in the area.9
A variety of plucked-instrument types which have features in common with the
lute can be found in medieval European iconographical sources from the ninth to
the twelfth century. Examples are in the Utrecht Psalter, Stuttgart Psalter, and
Beatus Apocalypse MSS.10 However, as Emanuel Winternitz suggested, their
ancestry may be connected to the classical kithara, and their descendants are more
likely to have been the medieval citole and later the Renaissance cittern than any
type of lute.11 These instruments usually have slender bodies which taper to a bul-
bous pegbox. The ùd, by contrast, appears in medieval iconography of the thir-
teenth century as a distinctly larger instrument, with a plump round body, and a
bent-back pegbox.12
The earliest known ùd player in Europe was Ziryãb, a virtuoso player from
Baghdad, whose real name was Abu l-Hasan Alì ibn Nãfi. He crossed into Al-
Andaluz in , and entered the service of Abd al-Rah. mãn II (–), the Caliph
of Córdoba. Ziryãb’s fame preceded him, and the Caliph is said to have ridden out
of Córdoba to welcome the musician personally, and paid him , pieces of gold
annually.13 Moorish power in the Iberian Peninsula gradually declined from its
zenith in the tenth century to the final expulsion in of the Moors from
Granada, their last remaining stronghold. During this time Christian courts grew
in power and absorbed Moorish lands. Much Arabic influence remained, not least
in the music and instruments at the expanding Christian courts.14
The famous miniatures in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (c.) of Alfonso el
Sabio, King of Castile and Leon (–), depict a great variety of instruments
7 Farmer, ‘The Origin of the Arabian Lute and Rebec’, . See also id., ‘The Influence of Music: From Arabic
Sources’, PMA (–), –.
8 Curtis Bouterse, ‘Reconstructing the Medieval Arabic Lute: A Reconsideration of Farmer’s “Structure of the
Arabic and Persian Lute” ’, GSJ (), –.
9 For recent writings on the subject see Monika Burzik, Quellenstudien zu europäischen Zupfinstrumentenformen
(Kassel, ), and Eckhard Neubauer, ‘Der Bau der Laute und ihre Besaitung nach arabischen, persischen und
türkischen Quellen des . bis . Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften,
(), –.
10 NL-Uu , Pss. , , , ; D-Sl, Bibl. fol. , fo. r; GB-Mr Lat. , fo. r.
11 Emanuel Winternitz, Musical Instruments and their Symbolism in Western Art (London, ), –.
12 For three drawings taken from th- and th-c. iconography, see Bouterse, ‘Reconstructing the Medieval
Arabic Lute’, .
13 Henry G. Farmer, A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century (London, ), –.
14 Higinio Anglés, Historia de la música medieval en Navarra (Pamplona, ), –.
Introduction
15
played by both Moorish and Christian musicians. Two of the pictures show large-
bodied instruments with large bridges and several sound holes. These instruments
are recognizable as the ùd in a form not far removed from that seen today in Arab
countries (see Pl. .). In one of these miniatures the ùd is played together with a
rebab, which also is seen in a form little altered from that still found today in parts
of the Arab world.16 In the other miniature, two ùds are seen together; one is
played, and the other held while its owner listens.17
The Arabic origin of both the ùd and rebab may account for their joint depic-
tion, and these two instruments may have formed a common ensemble. The ùd in
this miniature is so large that its near-circular front almost completely obscures the
player’s chest, and the neck extends outside the frame of the picture (Pl. .(a)).
Nine pegs are depicted, suggesting a five-course instrument with a single top or bot-
tom string, and with the remaining strings grouped in octave or unison pairs. It is
plucked by a plectrum held in the right hand. The player’s right arm cradles the
instrument from below, and thus supports it.
In the second miniature one ùd has eight pegs, and the other twelve (Pl. .(b)).
There is probably some confusion in these depictions. On both instruments the
pegs are not equally distributed on either side of the pegboxes, nor do their num-
bers tally with the number of strings. On one of the instruments the nine strings
that appear are clearly grouped into four pairs with a single string on the bass.
According to the ninth-century theorists, the ùd had four strings corresponding to
the four humours of the body. From top to bottom the strings were coloured: yel-
low for bile; red for blood; white for phlegm; black for melancholy. Ziryãb’s contri-
bution was to add a fifth string, also red, symbolizing the soul, which he introduced
between the second and third.18 It would appear from the Cantigas miniatures that
both four- and five-course ùds were known in thirteenth-century Spain, and that
courses were normally paired rather than single. Unfortunately, the miniatures tell
us nothing about the backs of the ùds. All surviving old lutes and ùds have backs
constructed by gluing separate ribs together to form a curved shell. Arab manu-
scripts from as early as the tenth century show that a ribbed construction was the
norm.19 We must suppose that the early European ùds, as depicted in the Cantigas
miniatures, also had a ribbed back, but we cannot be sure.
15 For a facsimile of the original, E-E b.I., with a critical edition of music and text see Higinio Anglés, La
música de las Cantigas de Santa Maria del Rey Alfonso el Sabio, vols. (Barcelona, –). For a study of E-E t.I.
with reproductions of the miniatures see José Guerrero Lovillo, Las Cántigas: estudio arqueológico de sus miniaturas
(Madrid, ).
16 E-E b.I.., fo. r.
17 Ibid., fo. r.
18 Julián Ribera y Tarragó, La música de las Cantigas, estudio sobre su origen y naturaleza (Madrid, ); trans.
Eleanor Hague and Marion Leffingwell in Music in Ancient Arabia and Spain (Stanford, ; repr. New York,
), .
19 Bouterse, ‘Reconstructing the Medieval Arabic Lute’, .
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
. .. Miniatures from the
Cantigas de Santa Maria (c.): (a)
rebab and cūd; (b) two cūds; (c) two
gitterns; (d) fiddle and citole; (e) citole
and oval-bodied lute. El Escorial, Real
Monasterio de S. Lorenzo, MS b...
Copyright Patrimonio Nacional
(e)
Introduction
Two other important plucked instruments that appear in the Cantigas miniatures
are the gittern and citole. Laurence Wright has conclusively shown that the term
‘gittern’ should be applied to the small plucked instrument with a rounded back and
sickle-shaped pegbox.20 The gittern is shown in the Cantigas miniatures with a
body which merges into the neck (suggesting a single-piece carved construction),
leading to a sickle-shaped pegbox terminating in a bulbous crest or carved head (Pl.
.(c)).21 Like the ùd, the gittern is of Arabic origin.22 It is fortunate that a mid-
fifteenth-century gittern by Hans Ott has survived.23 Ott was active in Nuremberg
from to , during which time the instrument was probably produced (Pls.
., .). It seems that by the mid-fourteenth century the lute and gittern were an
extablished ensemble in Italy.24
According to Wright the term ‘citole’ should be applied to the instrument that
Winternitz has identified as having its origin in the classical lyre or kithara, and its
descendant in the Renaissance cittern.25 This instrument would appear to have
been carved from a solid piece of wood, and is depicted in medieval iconography in
several shapes. One such shape has been likened to a holly-leaf. Winternitz has sug-
gested that the ‘wings’ of the holly-leaf shape developed from the kithara’s yoke,
and that they persist in a vestigial form on the cittern. The citole is depicted in three
Cantigas illustrations. In the picture of King Alfonso with his court, two citole play-
ers appear on one side opposite two fiddle players on the other.26 In a later minia-
ture the combination of fiddle and citole reappears (Pl. .(d)), and in a further
depiction the citole is played alongside an instrument with an oval belly, a sickle-
shaped pegbox, and a neck that is thin and quite long relative to the body length (Pl.
.(e)).27
The citole’s period of most common use in Europe was from to .28
Unlike the lute and gittern, it is not thought to be of Arabic origin, although it was
popular in fourteenth-century Spain. We are fortunate that a magnificently carved
English citole survives. According to Mary Remnant it should be dated c.–.29
This instrument was altered to carry a violin neck and strings at a later stage, but
its original body form is intact. Both the surviving gittern and citole have carved
20
Laurence Wright, ‘The Medieval Gittern and Citole: A Case of Mistaken Identity’, GSJ (), –.
21
E-E b.I., fo. r. 22
Wright, ‘The Medieval Gittern and Citole’, .
23
For a description and photograph see Friedemann Hellwig, ‘Lute-Making in the Late th and the th
Century’, LSJ (), –. The instrument today forms part of the Wartburg Stiftung, Eisenach (Cat. no.
KH ).
24
Howard Mayer Brown, ‘St Augustine, Lady Music, and the Gittern in Fourteenth-Century Italy’, Musica
disciplina, (), – at .
25
Wright, ‘The Medieval Gittern and Citole’, ; Winternitz, Musical Instruments, –.
26
E-E b.I., fo. r. 27
Ibid., fos. v, r.
28
Wright, ‘The Medieval Gittern and Citole’, .
29
Remnant calls this citole ‘the Warwick gittern’. Mary Remnant, ‘The Gittern in English Medieval Art’, GSJ
(), –; Mary Remnant and Richard Marks, ‘A Medieval Gittern’, in Music and Civilization: The British
Museum Yearbook, (), – at .
Introduction
. .. Detail of the rose of the Hans Ott gittern
. .. The Hans Ott gittern. Wartburg
Stiftung, Eisenach (Cat. no. KH )
backs. This feature, which we must assume to be the norm for gitterns, citoles, and
many other medieval stringed instruments, sets them apart from the ùd and lute of
ribbed construction. That no medieval lute survives may be due to the fragility of
ribbed construction, and the instability of glue in the often cold and wet conditions
of Europe.
The oval-bellied, long-necked lutes appear elsewhere in the Cantigas minia-
tures30 and in other iconography of the period. They may have a variety of belly
shapes and pegbox constructions, but all have long necks. Such instruments no
doubt developed from the ancient Mesopotamian instruments mentioned at the
outset, which have plentiful modern descendants in Arabic and Asian countries. It
is also possible that such long-necked lutes were known in fourteenth-century
30
E-E b.I., fos. r, v, r.
Introduction
31
France as the ‘guiterne moresche’. Long-necked instruments, while maintaining
a presence in southern Europe, seem never to have been popular in the north.
Other instruments besides the ùd and gittern were also successfully introduced
to Europe via the Arab world from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. The
shawm, another import from north Africa, had, by the beginning of the fifteenth
century, become the basis for the dance-band ensemble of loud or ‘haut’ instru-
ments found throughout Europe. The nakers were similarly successful as percus-
sion instruments. These instruments of Arabic origin immensely enriched the stock
of instrumental colours and techniques open to medieval musicians. Once intro-
duced they were adapted in response to the rise of polyphonic music in the later
Middle Ages. By the fourteenth century lutes in central and northern Europe were
clearly different from the ùds seen in thirteenth-century Spanish iconography.
31
Wright, ‘The Medieval Gittern and Citole’, –. The Spanish term occurs in a poem of c. by Juan
Ruiz, where the Moorish gittern is differentiated from the Latin gittern. Guillaume de Machaut’s two poems ‘La
Prise d’Alexandrie’ and ‘Remède de Fortune’ mention the ‘morache’, probably the long-necked lute by another
name.
Chapter Six
The Lute in Consort
there was an excellent princely maske brought before hir [the Queen] after sup-
per, by Mayster Goldingham, in the Privie Chamber; it was of gods and god-
desses, both strangely and richly apparelled . . . Then entred a consorte of
musicke; viz. sixe musitians, all in long vestures of white scarcenet gyrded
aboute them, and garlands on their heads, playing very cunningly.
Bernard Garter, The Ioyful Receyving of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie
into hir Highnesse Citie of Norwich (London, )
The great majority of surviving lute pieces from England are for the solo lute, yet
this may not reflect the lute’s common use, and its role as a consort and accompa-
niment instrument may be no less significant. During the Middle Ages it was
mainly used to play single lines, and combination with another instrument or
instruments, or a voice or voices, may have been the norm. Once technique had
changed to allow a single player to add a harmonic support to the melody line, the
lute became a leading solo instrument. Solo music apart, the instrument’s new
capacity to play chords and polyphonic lines enhanced its suitability as an accom-
paniment instrument. Indeed the lute, in the form of the theorbo or archlute, was
still in use for this purpose until the eighteenth century, long after solo music had
ceased to be composed in Britain.
Within a consort of instruments the lute could either play a melodic line (with lim-
ited sustain) or provide chordal support—or a combination of both. The use of the lute
as a single-line melody instrument did not stop at the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury, when, by discarding the plectrum and plucking directly with the fingers, har-
monic and contrapuntal play became possible. A substantial and important repertoire
of duet and mixed-consort music survives from the – period, which makes a
feature of fast and agile single-line diminutions or divisions. Certain Stuart masques
required massed lutes, up to forty according to one account. Some masque musicians
designated ‘treble lutes’ may still have been using this type of play as late as the s.
English sources of lute music of the period preserve a repertoire of over eighty
duets (see Table .). There is an obvious division of the pieces into two categories:
the ‘treble-and-ground duet’ and the ‘equal duet’.1 In most treble-and-ground
1
Lyle Nordstrom, ‘The English Lute Duet and Consort Lesson’, LSJ (), –. See also Richard
Newton, ‘English Duets for Two Lutes’, LSJ (), –.
The Lute in Consort
duets one lute repeats a simple harmonic ground that may be anything from two to
thirty-two bars in length. Grounds are normally a progression of homophonic
chords with little melodic or rhythmic interest. Over this part the other lute plays
a single-line melody, producing varied divisions for as many times as the ground is
repeated. While there are a number of such duets in which both parts are relatively
simple, the form normally involves the contrasting of a simple chordal ground with
a more difficult single-line melody.
Table .. Principal English lute duets –
Note: Not included are the few Continental duets that appear in English sources, or grounds for which no match-
ing trebles have been found. Titles have been standardized.
Title Composer Main sources (t = treble, g = ground)
TREBLE AND GROUND
Chi Passa John Johnson Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Marsh, pp. –
(t)
Dump, no. John Johnson Dd.., fo. v (t&g); Marsh, pp. –
(t&g), Add. , fo. v
Dump, no. (Queen’s Treble) John Johnson Dd.., fos. r–v (t); Schele, pp. –
(t); Pickeringe, fos. v–r (t&g); Folger,
fos. v–r (t&g); Add. , fos. v–r (t);
Königsberg, fos. v–r (t&g), Brogyntyn,
p. (g)
Goodnight John Johnson Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Marsh, pp. –,
– (t); Willoughby, fos. v–v (t&g);
Brogyntyn, p. (g); Dallis, p. (g)
The New Hunt is Up John Johnson Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Trumbull, fos.
v–r (t); Welde, fos. r–r (t); Marsh,
pp. – (t&g)
Rogero John Johnson Dd.., fo. r (t); Mynshall, fos. v (t);
Trumbull, fo. v (t&g); Dallis, p. (g)
The Short Almain, no. John Johnson Dd.., fo. v (t); Pickeringe, fos.
v–r (t&g)
The Short Almain, no. John Johnson Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Pickeringe, fo. r
(g)
Trenchmore John Johnson Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Welde, fos.
v–r (t&g); Marsh, pp. – (t&g)
Wakefield on a Green John Johnson Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Marsh, pp. –
(t&g)
The Queenes good Night Thomas Robinson Schoole of Musicke, p. (t&g)
Twenty waies upon the bels Thomas Robinson Schoole of Musicke, p. (t&g)
Passemezzo Galliard Thomas Robinson Schoole of Musicke, p. (t&g)
The Lute in Consort
Title Composer Main sources (t = treble, g = ground)
The Sharp Pavan Richard Allison Pickeringe, fos. v–r (t&g); Folger, fos.
v–r (t); Add. , fos. v–r (t);
Trumbull, fo. r (g)
Spanish Measures Richard Allison Board, fos. v–r (t&g)
The Spanish Pavinge Alfonso Ferrabosco Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Pickeringe, fos.
v–r (t&g)
The Marygolde Ellis Lawrey Dd.., fo. r (t&g)
Passymeasures Galliard John Danyel Dd.., fos. r–r (t&g)
Short Almain Francis Cutting Dd.., fo. r (t)
Galliard Robert Askue Dd.., fo. v (t)
Fortune my Foe ?John Dowland Dd.., fo. r (t)
The Leaves be Green Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fo. v (t); Dd.., fos. v–r
(t); Pickeringe, fos. v–r (t&g)
The Flatt Pavan Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fo. v (t); Trumbull, fos. r–r
(t)
Galliard to the Flatt Pavan Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fo. r (t)
The Honsok/Hunts Up Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fo. v (t); Board, fos. v–r (t&g);
Folger, fos. v–r (t&g); Trumbull, fos.
v–r (t&g)
Sellenger’s Round Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fo. r (t), Marsh, p. (t);
Thysius, pp. – (t)
Greensleves Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Folger, fo. r (g)
Cara Cosa Anon. (?J. Johnson) Marsh, pp. –, (t)
Passemeasures Galliard Anon. (?J. Johnson)a Marsh, pp. – (t&g)
Dump Anon. (?J. Johnson)a Marsh, pp. ‒ (t&g)
Dump Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Thistlethwaite,
fo. r–r (t); Schele, p. (t)
Passemeasures Pavan Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fos. v–r (t&g); Marsh, pp.
– (t); Mynshall, fos. v–r (t); Ballet,
p. (g)
Galliard to the Passemeasures Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fo. v (t)
The French Galliard Anon. (?J. Johnson) Marsh, pp. – (t)
Go Merely wheele Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fos. v–r (t)
Dump (Bergamasca) Anon. (?J. Johnson) Add. , fo. r (t); Board, fo. r (t&g)
Green Garters Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fos. v–r (t)
Callinoe Anon. Dd.., fo. r (t)
Quadro Pavan Anon. Dd.., fos. r–r (t); Pickeringe, fos.
v–r (t&g); Trumbull, fos. v–r (t)
Quadro Galliard Anon. (?J. Johnson) Dd.., fos. v–r (t); Pickeringe, fos. 8r
v–r (t&g); Trumbull, fos. v–r (t)
Dump Anon. Dd.., fos. r–r (t)
Robin is to the Greenwood Anon. Dd.., fo. r (t)
Passemezzo Galliard Anon. Dd.., fos. v–r (t)
The Lute in Consort
Table .. cont.
Title Composer Main sources (t = treble, g = ground)
Passemazzo Pavan Anon. Dd.., fos. v–v (t)
The Galliard Anon. Dd.., fos. v–r (t)
The Bodkin Anon. Dd.., fo. r–v (t)
Greensleeves Anon. Folger, fo. r (t&g); Mynshall, fo. r–v (t)
?Dump Anon. Add. , fo. r (t&g)
Rogero Anon. Marsh, p. (t); Dallis, p. (g)
A Treble Anon. Marsh, pp. – (t)
A Treble Anon. Ballet, pp. – (t)
Hart Opressed Anon. Mynshall, fo. r (t)
John Come Kiss Me Now Anon. Welde, fos. v–r (t)
Malt’s Come Down Anon. Dd.., fo. v (t)
Mounsiers Alman Anon. Dd.., fos. v–r (t)
A Treble Anon. Add. , fo. v (t)
PIECES THAT CAN BE PLAYED AS DUETS ON LUTES A FOURTH APART
(s = superius, b = bassus)
Lady Rich’s Galliard John Dowland Königsberg, fo. r (s&b)
Philips Pavin Peter Philips Dallis, pp. – (s&b)
In Nomine Pavan Nicholas Strogersb Dallis, p. (b); Trumbull, fos. v–r
(s); Hirsch, fo. v (s)
In Nomine Galliard Nicholas Strogers Dallis, pp. – (s&b); Trumbull, fo. r
(s); Hirsch, fo. r (s), Dd.., fo. v (s)
Chi Passa Anon. Willoughby, fos. v–r (s&b)
EQUAL DUETS
Flat Pavan John Johnson Pickeringe, fos. v–r (I&II); Trumbull, fo.
r (II)
Galliard to the Flat Pavan John Johnson Pickeringe, fos. v–r (I&II)
La Vecchia Pavan John Johnson Pickeringe, fo. r (I); Ballet, p. (I);
Wickhambrook, fo. r–v (I&II);
Brogyntyn, pp. – (II)
La Vecchia Galliard John Johnson Pickeringe, fo. r–v (I&II); Wickhambrook,
fo. r (I&II); Brogyntyn, p. (II)
Galliard John Johnsonc Brogyntyn, p. (II)
A Plaine song Thomas Robinson Schoole of Musicke, pp. – (I&II)
A Fantasie Thomas Robinson Schoole of Musicke, pp. – (I&II)
A Toy Thomas Robinson Schoole of Musicke, pp. – (I&II);
Sampson, fo. v (II)
An allman/Eccho John Marchant/ Sampson, fo. v (II); Brogyntyn, p. (I)
Francis Pilkington
A Fancy John Marchant Hirsch, fo. v (I); Brogyntyn, p. (II)
A Fancy John Marchant Thistlethwaite, fos. v–r (I)
The Lute in Consort
Title Composer Main sources (t = treble, g = ground)
Lord Chamberlaine’s Galliard John Dowlandd First Booke, sig. Lv (I&II); Dd.., fo.
r (I&II)
Lord Willoughby’s Welcome John Dowland Sampson, fo. v (II); Folger, fo. v (I)
home
Now oh now/Frog Galliard John Dowlandc Königsberg, fo. r (II)
Pavan Richard Readee Dd.., fos. v‒r (I); Dd.., fo. r
(II)
Pavan Richard Readee Dd.., fo. r (I); Dd.., fo. v (II)
Pavan Richard Readee Dd.., fo. r (I); Dd.., fo. v (II)
Pavan Richard Readee Dd.., fo. r (I)
De la Tromba Pavan Richard Allison Pickeringe, fos. v–r (I&II); Sampson fos.
v–r (II); Brogyntyn, pp. – (II)
Go From My Window Richard Allison Add. (), fo. v (II)
A Fancy for lutes John Danyelf Sampson, fo. r (I)
Drewries accorde Anon. Pickeringe, fo. v–r (I&II); Ballet, pp. –
(I&II); Brogyntyn, p. (II)
La Rosignall Anon. Pickeringe, fo. r–v (I&II); Board, fo. r (I)
A Merry Mood Anon.f Sampson, fo. r (I)
An Almayne Anon. Sampson, fo. r; Folger, fo. v (I&II)
Duncomb’s Galliard Anon.f Sampson, fo. v (I)
Galliard Anon.d Trumbull, fo. v (I&II)
Galiard for lutes/ Anon.c Sampson, fos. v–r (II)
Squires Galliard
Battel for lutes Anon.g Pickeringe, fos. v–r (I&II)
Alpha Pavan Anon.c Brogyntyn, p. (II)
De la Trumba Galliard Anon.c Brogyntyn, pp. – (II)
Galliard after La Vecchia Anon. Ballet, pp. – (I&II)
Pavan to Delight Anon.h Folger, fos. v–r (I); Brogyntyn, p.
(II)
Galliard Anon.f Trumbull, fo. v (I)
a
Ground on a lute tuned a fourth below.
b
The Dallis bassus may be unrelated to the surviving superius.
c
Lute II only.
d
For two to play on one lute.
e
For orpharions tuned a fifth apart plus consort?
f
Lute I only.
g
Lutes a tone apart.
h
Duet part that fits the solo version by John Johnson in Folger.
The Lute in Consort
Trebles are ideally suited to the right-hand thumb-and-forefinger technique.
This technique developed from plectrum playing, and such treble parts can be, and
may have been, played using a plectrum.2 This type of duet is older than the equal
duet, which may have developed from it. The repertoire consists of many more duet
trebles than equal duets ( to ).3 Most treble-and-ground duets are sets of vari-
ations over a ground, but there are a number which are pavans, galliards, or some
other popular dance form in which one lute ‘descants’ with fast divisions. Duet tre-
bles were evidently very popular in the s and s, and connect with the large
amount of solo lute music also based on grounds in sources like the Willoughby and
Marsh manuscripts. It may be that some of this early solo music, such as the Dump
Philli in the Marsh manuscript, developed in imitation of the effects and texture of
a treble-and-ground duet.
The equal duet, by contrast, involves near equal technical difficulty for both play-
ers, and the sharing of musical responsibilities for melody and accompaniment.
Some equal duets produce a treble-and-ground texture, in which the single-line
melody is passed from player to player. While one player ‘descants’, the other
accompanies with chords. Many of such ‘alternating style’ duets are based on tri-
partite dances (pavans, galliards, almains). A number of easier equal lute duets cor-
respond to the lighter jigs and toys of the solo repertoire. These pieces, whether
bipartite, tripartite or longer, consist of short answering phrases where the melodic
material is passed from player to player, and is either reiterated exactly, or in a
slightly altered form. This repetition of material can follow after a phrase is
finished, or more quickly as an ‘echo’ effect, or as the type of canonic imitation
known in the sixteenth century as ‘reports’. These pieces connect with the consid-
erable body of Renaissance duo material for two trebles. As with Morley’s duets,
such bicinia often had a pedagogical purpose.
Lute-duet trebles were produced in countries other than England in the six-
teenth century. In Italy single-line trebles were composed and published through-
out the century from Spinacino () and Dalza () to Galilei () and Terzi
().4 A variety of types of equal duets were published in Italy from Joannes
Matelart’s duet arrangements of fantasias by Francesco da Milano () to the
early seventeenth-century canzonas and toccatas by Melli (–) and Piccinini
().5 In general the emphasis in these equal duets is on the improvement in
2 The use of a plectrum in connection with lute duets may have continued into the th c., as the engraving by
Jacob Cats in Sinne- en Minnebeelden () shows a plectrum on the smaller of the two lutes in the picture.
3 The only study dedicated to the English lute duet is Jeffrey Alexander’s ‘The English Lute Duet, –’
(MA thesis, University of Nottingham, ).
4 Francesco Spinacino, Intabolatura de lauto (Venice, ); Joan Ambrosio Dalza, Intabulatura de lauto (Venice,
); Vincenzo Galilei, Fronimo: Dialogo (Venice, , rev. edn., ); Giovanni Antonio Terzi, Intavolatura
di liutto (Venice, ).
5 Joannes Matelart, Intavolatura de leuto (Rome, ); Pietro Paolo Melli, Intabolatura di liuto Libri I–V
(Venice, , , , , ); Alessandro Piccinini, Intavolatura di liuto et di chitarrone (Bologna, ).
The Lute in Consort
definition of musical ideas made possible with two lutes. Canonic imitation and
echo effects are much clearer with two sound sources. Equal-duet music was pub-
lished in quantity outside Italy in the sixteenth century, notably by the Antwerp
publisher Phalèse, and in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century by the anthol-
ogists Adriaenssen, Van den Hove, and Besard. Later, in the Baroque period lute
duets re-emerged with the French contrepartie—a piece composed for a second lute
to combine with an existing lute solo in the manner of the Matelart/Milano pieces.
There are some instances of this type of piece in the English repertoire—Dowland’s
‘Lord Wilobies Welcome home’ is an example—but they are rare. Duets were still
being produced in some quantity by the last generation of eighteenth-century
German lutenist-composers.6
English sources suggest that the fashion for lute duets was strong in the years
–, but that duets were played well into the s. The vogue was at its
peak in the twenty years from to , slightly before the most productive
period for English solo lute music. The sixteenth-century combination of two lutes,
one descanting and the other providing a simple accompaniment, must connect
with the fifteenth-century combination of virtuoso lute or gittern performer with an
Table .. Principal sources of English lute duets
Source Number Comments
Dd.. trebles, only of which have grounds attached. Of the
presumed equal duet parts, only two are complete and some
may be consort parts
Marsh All duet trebles, a few with grounds
Pickeringe equal; treble and ground
Brogyntyn grounds; equal duet parts
Trumbull trebles, with grounds; lute-duet parts; duet for two to
play on one lute
Sampson All equal duets, only one of which is complete
Folger equal (only one of which is complete); trebles ( of which
have grounds); one ground without treble
Ballet equal duets ( complete); treble and ground; grounds
without trebles
Schoole of Musicke trebles with grounds; equal duets
Board trebles ( with grounds); equal-duet part
Mynshall trebles all without grounds; equal-duet part
6
Ernst Gottlieb Baron, ‘Courante’, US-NYp JOG –, fasc. xiii; Leopold Sylvius Weiss, ‘ Partien für zwei
Lauten’, D-Dlb MS Mus /v/i; Joachim Bernhard Hagen, ‘Konzert für zwei Lauten und Violine’, D-As MS
Tonkunst Schl. , fasc. ii, iii; Adam Falkenhagen, ‘Duetto F-Dur für Barocklauten’, D-As MS Tonkunst Schl.
, fasc. iii.
The Lute in Consort
accompanimental ‘tenorista’. This practice was well documented in Italy and may
have been widespread in Europe. The combination must have been known in
England well before the s, from which point manuscript sources survive that
contain duets.
The earliest English duet repertoire is quite sophisticated and reflects a devel-
oped genre. Possibly there was a written repertoire prior to that has not sur-
vived. More likely, the repertoire was the preserve of professionals able to improvise
(or compose and memorize) descants over a simple accompaniment such as a well-
known tenor or a stock chord progression. As the harmony was slow moving it gave
time for the improviser to think. As professionals evolved from illiterate minstrels
to trained musicians, so improvisation gave way to studied compositions commit-
ted to paper. The elaborate trebles of John Johnson in manuscripts of the s and
s would be examples of this latter type. With the increasing number of good
amateur players and the increased use of tablature and manuscript circulation of
music, so the equal duet developed and technical demands became more moderate.
Thomas Robinson may be referring to the descanting style of the s and before
when, in The Schoole of Musicke (), Timotheus the lute teacher berates the
earlier generation of lute players, saying:
for in older times they strove (onelie) to have a quick hand upon the Lute, to runne hurrie
hurrie, keeping a Catt in the gutter upon the ground, now true then false, now up now
downe, with such painfull play, mocking, mowing, gripeing, grinning, sighing, supping,
heaving, shouldring, labouring, and sweating, like cart Iades, without any skill in the world,
or rule, or reason to play a lesson, or finger the Lute, or guide the bodie, or know any thing,
that belongeth, either to skill or reason.
One basic difference between English duets of the – period and
Continental duets is that English duets, with few exceptions, are for two identically
pitched instruments.7 A far greater proportion of Continental duets are for lutes of
different pitches. Two of the Matelart/Francesco duets are for unison lutes; the
rest, like many of the pieces published by Besard, Melli, and Piccinnini, are for
instruments a tone apart. There are vihuela duets by Valderrábano that call for
instruments a third, fourth, and fifth apart as well as at the unison.8 Duets for lutes
a fourth apart were particularly popular and would suit a treble and mean lute, or
mean and bass. The large collection published by Heckel () is for lutes a
tone or a fourth apart, and Phalèse’s set is for lutes at the unison, fourth, and
fifth.
7
The exceptions are found in the Marsh, Dallis and Pickeringe MSS. The Willoughby MS contains three solo
settings of the ‘Qui passa’, two of which (nos. and ) can be played by two lutes a fourth apart, according to a
footnote in the MS.
8
Enriquez de Valderrábano, Libro de música de vihuela, intitulado Silva de sirenas (Valladolid, ), Libro IV.
The Lute in Consort
The existence of lutes of different sizes in the sixteenth century is well docu-
mented. A good number of Renaissance bass lutes survive, many of them recycled
as theorbos in the seventeenth century. Lutes of different sizes were played together
as trios and quartets. Surviving plucked trio and quartet music in tablature spans
the period from , the date of Pacoloni’s large collection for three lutes (to which
Viaera added ad lib cittern parts, ),9 to the anonymous suite published in
entitled ‘Conserto Vago’ for lute, theorbo, and a small -course guitar.10 The
Thysius manuscript contains thirteen quartets for lutes in which pre-existing pieces
are arranged for lutes of different sizes.11 Music for two or more lutes, or for a num-
ber of lutes and voices, is an important ingredient of many of the Continental
anthologies listed in Table .. The opening two sections of Besard’s Novus partus
() are devoted to music for three concerted lutes, the first of which also requires
two or more other instruments or voices. The collections of Fuhrmann and Van den
Hove also contain some lute duets.12 Visual evidence is found in the anonymous
French painting Le bal des noces du duc de Joyeuse (–), in which a consort of
four lutes provides court dance music.13
Adriaenssen’s three books have sections devoted to concerted music for two to
four lutes in various combinations.14 In all lute-ensemble music, the upper lutes
play divisions and are most active, while the lower parts are more functional and
have a harmonic role. Adriaenssen’s approach to arranging vocal music for a lute
quartet at the nominal pitches a¢, g¢, e¢, and d¢ is quite straightforward. The soprano,
alto, and tenor lutes play the soprano, alto, and tenor lines in their upper voices and
all play the bass line in their lowest voice. The bass lute plays the bass part an octave
lower and has the tenor in its upper part. Chords are filled out as required and
melodic embellishments are normally given to the upper parts.
Concerted lutes were heard in England. Court accounts of the s and s
occasionally mention lutenists as being of ‘the three lutes’. John Johnson received
his place ‘in the room of Anthony de Counte, deceased, one of the musicians for the
three lutes’.15 This mention is a surprise, as until only one place (that of
Anthony County) is specified as a lutenist. We could interpret the accounts as say-
ing only that there were three lutenist places, and not that there was an ensemble
9 Giovanni Pacoloni, Longe elegantissima excellentissimi musici . . . tribus testudinibus ludenda Carmina (Louvain,
); Frederic Viaera, Nova et elegantissima in Cythara ludenda Carmina (Louvain, ). Viaera provides a num-
ber of cittern pieces that can be played with Pacoloni’s trios.
10 Anthony Rooley and James Tyler, ‘The Lute Consort’, LSJ (), –.
11 Todd Lane, ‘The Lute Quartets in the Thysius Lute Book’, JLSA (), –.
12 Georg Leopold Fuhrmann, Testudo gallo-germanica (Nuremberg, ), –; Joachim Van den Hove,
Florida (Utrecht, ), fos. r–r.
13 Paris, Louvre, inv. . There are several versions of this painting.
14 In Pratum musicum (Antwerp, ) these sections are for: two lutes and three voices (fos. v–r, r–r),
three lutes (fos. v–v), four lutes and four voices (fos. r–r), two lutes and four voices (fos. v–r, r).
15 RECM vi. .
The Lute in Consort
known as ‘the three lutes’. Was there a court consort of lutes in existence by ?
Accounts would confirm that there was, and the number of places was never fixed
at three. Holman goes further and states that they were called ‘of the three lutes’,
not because there were three players, but because the group used three different
sizes of lute.16 This is indicated in accounts which specify the size of lute used by
particular players within the consort.17 Mathias Mason, who was appointed at the
same time as Johnson, was also mentioned as a ‘musician for the lutes’.18 Walter
Pierce’s appointment in also specifies that he belonged to the group.19 The
warrant for Pierce’s appointment contains the last mention of the group in royal
accounts, and the appointment of Edward Collard to Johnson’s place in makes
no mention of the three lutes.
The consort of lutes did not die out at this stage but was expanded in the early
seventeenth century. Robert Johnson and Philip Rosseter were both referred to in
payments for strings for the bass lute, and in Johnson was ‘one of the consorte
of Lutes’.20 In the s the group was called ‘his Ma[jes]tes fower Lutes’. The
group may have got bigger again, as John Coggeshall was paid for supplying strings
for ‘the four lutes and theorba’ in and . In and he was respon-
sible for ‘provyding & maynteyning of his Ma[jes]tes Fower Lutes wth Stringes at
all tymes of their meetings & practises’.21 Outside court William Cavendish
employed enough lutenists to make a lute consort a reality and purchased ‘three
bookes for three lutes’. On one occasion Cavendish paid Lord Dudley North’s men
who ‘played on three lutes’, suggesting another lute consort outside court.22
As for extant English lute music for concerted lutes we have only the title and
one part of the piece ‘Replete for three lutes’ in the Brogyntyn manuscript.23 The
Dallis lute book contains a piece that can be played by four lutes, ‘Era dì maggio’,
and one for five lutes, ‘Pavan si vous’.24 The Dallis pieces are far from convincing.
The parts of the eight-bar ‘Pavan si vous’ are written one below the other down the
five tablature stave lines. The second, third, and fourth lines are marked ‘Sup’,
‘Tenor’, and ‘Bassus’ and the first line is almost identical to the second. The parts
could be played by lutes at nominal pitch g¢, g¢, d¢, c¢, and ‘a’. Robinson promised,
in his address to the reader in The Schoole of Musicke (), to follow it up with a
book which included ‘lessons for one, two and three Lutes’, if the The Schoole of
Musicke was well received. This he never did.
16
Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, –.
17
Robert Johnson and Philip Rosseter were at different times players of the bass lute; RECM iv. –, .
18
RECM vi. . 19
Ibid. . 20
Ibid., iv. –, , , .
21
Ibid., iii. , , , ; Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, .
22
Hardwick MS , entry for Jan. . See Hulse, ‘Hardwick MS ’, .
23
Brogyntyn MS, –. For a reconstruction see Davies, ‘Replete for Three Lutes’.
24
Ward and Music , ‘The Lute Books of Trinity College’, .
The Lute in Consort
The small amount of surviving English material for three or more lutes is all of
inferior quality and in some cases may be reworkings of solo material in different
keys, rather than music intended to be played together. The lack of source material
may be because lute trios of this period performed duet material repertoire with a
simple bass lute part added, rather than three independent parts. The trios in
Hume’s book can be played this way. It is certainly easy to concoct a bass lute
part for most existing duets, and this transforms the sound into a richer and more
balanced texture.
At court massed lutes were a feature of Stuart masques. Twelve lutes seems to
have been a standard number for Jacobean masques, though Love Freed from
Ignorance and Folly () involved two groups of twelve lutenists, and twenty were
organized by Robert Johnson for Oberon (). Their main role was to accompany
vocal music but, as in Hymenaei (), the massed lutes did also accompany
dancers.25 A set of three pieces composed for the Lord Hayes Masque by
Thomas Campion survive in arrangements for mixed consort in Rosseter’s Lessons
for Consort (). The pieces were published by Campion himself in The
Discription of a Maske () in versions for voice or voices, lute, and bass viol.26
The first piece, ‘Move Now’, was originally performed as follows:
the foure Silvans played on their instruments [given on sig. B as ‘two bearing meane Lutes,
the third a base Lute, and the fourth a deepe Bandora’] the first straine of this song follow-
ing: & at the repetition thereof the voices fell in with the instrumentes which were thus dev-
ided, a treble and a base were placed neare his Majestie, and an other treble and base neere
the grove, that the words of the song might be heard of all.27
The resulting sound must have been familiar to the Stuart court and many others
across Europe.
Table . shows that the English lute-duet repertoire is dominated by one man,
John Johnson, and that while there are over twenty sources of English duets, only
a handful of sources contain much of the music. Thomas Robinson’s six finely
crafted duets—three equal duets and three duet trebles—stand somewhat apart, as
they were printed, and like Robinson’s solo lute pieces, they do not appear to have
circulated much in manuscript. The only other printed duet is Dowland’s ‘My
Lord Chamberlaine his Galliard’, ‘an invention by the said Author for two to play
upon one Lute’.28 It is a good piece presented in a novel way, and allows the possi-
bility of an intimate embrace between the two players. A similar two-on-one-lute
duet is found in the Trumbull manuscript.29 The idea was later copied by Hume in
his ‘Lesson for two to play upon one Viole’.30
25 Peter Walls, Music in the English Courtly Masque – (Oxford, ), –.
26 Thomas Campion, The Discription of a Maske (London, ), nos. II, III, V.
27 Ibid., sig. C. 28 John Dowland, The First Booke of Songs or Ayres (London, ), sig. Lv.
29 Trumbull MS, fo. v. 30 Tobias Hume, The First Part of Ayres (London, ), no. .
The Lute in Consort
Of the lute-duet manuscript sources listed in Table . three are pre-eminent:
Dd.., Marsh, and Pickeringe. A further six manuscripts are important:
Brogyntyn, Folger, Sampson, Trumbull, Board, and Ballet.31 Dd.. contains
compositions, including thirty-six duet trebles. Nordstrom suggests that Dd..
was started earlier than the solo books in Holmes’s hand as a collection of duet tre-
bles, and that it was continually added to over a period of some twenty years.32
Nordstrom divides the book into twelve sections, six of which contain trebles. The
twelve sections are divided into those that contain mostly: consort lute parts; a mix-
ture of duet trebles and consort parts; solos; equal duets; pieces for three orphari-
ons. Most of the duet trebles in the opening section of the manuscript are either by
John Johnson or are attributed to him by Nordstrom. Among the pieces in the sec-
ond section is a unique treble by Ellis Lawrey entitled ‘The Marygolde’.33 Most of
the trebles lack grounds, probably because they were so simple and well known.
Lawrey’s piece has its ground as it is more extended than most. The last sections
with trebles include pieces by Cutting and Danyel. Many of the trebles in Dd..
are unique. Of those for which concordances can be found, the Dd.. versions are
generally the most complete, and sometimes contain sections which are either
absent or incorrect in other sources.
Like the earlier sections of Dd.., the Marsh manuscript also dates from the
s, and contains many treble duets and no equal duets. Of the fifteen duet tre-
bles, eight are by Johnson (including two versions of ‘Goodnight’), and a further
five are attributed to him by Nordstrom. All the eight Johnson pieces are found in
some form in Dd.., and some four of the possible Johnson pieces are unique to
the Marsh manuscript. The Marsh manuscript contains a number of grounds for
the bandora. Certainly the instrument was used as an alternative to a second lute to
accompany lute trebles. Eleven of the trebles are placed together in one section of
the manuscript.
The Pickeringe lute book probably dates from after , and opens with a bal-
anced group of seven equal duets and seven treble-and-ground duets. The selection
of treble-and-ground duets contains popular favourites of an older generation.
None is unique and none is excessive in length or technical demands. The book
begins with the less antiquated equal duets, the first four of which are probably by
Johnson, and all of which appear to have achieved some degree of popularity, to
judge by manuscript concordances. In several cases the two parts cannot both be
played together from the manucript as they are written on different openings. Most
probably this collection of fourteen pieces was copied as an entity from a friend’s or
a teacher’s book. One senses that by the beginning of the seventeenth century the
31 Lyle Nordstrom, ‘The English Lute Duet’, –.
32 Nordstrom, ‘The Cambridge Consort Books’, . 33 Dd.., fo. r.
The Lute in Consort
lute duet was no longer a form that interested lutenist-composers. Useful in teach-
ing, it had become the preserve of the amateur.
Two Willoughby manuscript ‘Qui passas’ in different keys carry the note ‘these
tow qui passas agre one tow lutes the one set foure notes above the other’. The line
alerts the player to the possibility of performing two solos based on the same ground
as a duet on lutes a fourth apart.34 The practice of creating duets, or possibly even
trios, out of the simultaneous playing of different versions of standard grounds is
lent support in the line in Holborne’s The Cittharn Schoole () where he states,
‘I have conioyned the most usuall and familiar grounds of these our times, for con-
sort or thine owne private selfe’.35 Here the support of the bass viol is particularly
needed as the cittern’s tuning makes it impossible for it to play the bass line prop-
erly.
John Johnson’s influence on the English lute duet cannot be overestimated. His
duets were still being played and circulated decades after his death. Nordstrom, in
his study of Johnson’s duets, lists sixteen attributed pieces, and identifies a further
sixteen that on stylistic grounds are likely to be by him.36 Nordstrom’s seven points
of style characteristic of Johnson are: idiomatic use of all the resources of the lute;
the exploration of the instrument’s full range from the lowest notes on the sixth
course to the highest note on the top string (g≤ ); the preference for the high frets
on the lowest three courses to contrast the octave stringing of these courses with the
unison stringing of the upper courses; echo effects at the octave; cross-relations;
triplets towards the close; extended sets of divisions. The trebles of ‘Green Garters’,
the ‘Short Almain ’, and ‘The New Hunts Up’ are long and virtuosic, and may
reflect the material played by the royal lute consort. Example . exemplifies some
of Johnson’s points of style, particularly the exploitation of the full range of the lute
(bar descends to the lowest note on the lute, bar ascends to the highest), echo
effects (bars , , ), and cross-relations (bars –). It is interesting that the
sources of this piece disagree on how to notate the two highest notes in bar .
Dd.. and the Marsh manuscript have them as ‘m’ and ‘l’; the Welde manuscript
as ‘n’ and ‘l’; the Trumball manuscript as ‘n’ and ‘m’. I believe they all imply the
pitches g≤ and f≤ and that the confusion resulted from the fact that added frets on
the belly of the lute to facilitate these notes had yet to be invented at the time of
compostion.
No identifiable composer other than Johnson contributed significantly to the
genre of the treble-and-ground duet. Stylistically Johnson’s pieces are more
diverse, varied, and less predictable than those of any other. Richard Allison’s two
34
Willoughby MS, nos. and for g¢ and d¢ lutes, fos. v–r.
35
Anthony Holborne, The Cittharn Schoole (London, ), Preface to the Reader. I am grateful to Stewart
McCoy for this suggestion.
36
Lyle Nordstrom, ‘The Lute Duets of John Johnson’, JLSA (), –.
The Lute in Consort
E. .. ‘The New Hunt is Up’ (fourth variation of nine), (a) treble from Dd.., fo. v;
(b) ground from Marsh MS, p. , bars –
50
(a)
(b)
The Lute in Consort
Ex. 6.1b
55
The Lute in Consort
E. .. cont.
60
1.
1. Tablature letters altered to n m n as in the
Trumbull MS. fo.15 v .
The Lute in Consort
surviving duet trebles exist in versions for mixed consort. The ‘Sharp Pavan’
achieved some popularity, but it is conceivable that the Allison duets, like others in
the repertoire, are anonymous arrangements of existing pieces for mixed consort or
solo lute.37 The Pickeringe version of Allison’s ‘Sharp Pavan’ may suggest this in
the manuscript note ‘the treble to the pavinge of allasons’.38 Robinson’s modest tre-
bles are pedagogical in purpose, and two are fully fingered for the left hand.39 By
when Robinson produced his book the genre may have seemed archaic, and
suitable more for developing technical proficiency rather than musical expression.
The link with teaching is even stronger with equal duets. Many of the lighter
duet pieces such as ‘La rosignoll’, ‘An Allman/Eccho’, and ‘A merry moode’ are
simply exercises in ‘reporting style’. In these pieces the alternation of roles between
the two lutes of treble and accompaniment is rapid, and the musical material is
swapped with little or no alteration. In ‘An Allman/Eccho’ the alternation of mate-
rial is every two or four bars (see Ex. .). Even the few fantasias for lute duet fol-
low this pattern. Equal-duet pieces make excellent pedagogical exercises, as the
pupil is able to copy the articulation and phrasing of the teacher.
The English duet repertoire is closely related to that of the mixed consort. Many
pieces exist in versions for both combinations, and many of the sources that contain
duets (Dd.., Marsh, Folger, and Trumbull manuscripts in particular) also have
lute-consort parts. Nordstrom put forward the plausible theory that the duet treble
of the s and s gave rise to the consort lesson.40 According to this theory
the potential monotony of the ground was relieved by alternative instrumentation.
The Marsh manuscript contains bandora grounds. Further instruments could join
in—the bass viol on the bass line and the treble viol with a melody on top. With a
larger ensemble, bipartite and tripartite dances were found to be more suitable, as
the parts then had two or three sections of different material instead of one, and the
lute could vary the sections by playing treble-line divisions on the repeats of each
section.
Further expansion of the ensemble occurred with the addition of the cittern to
supplement the harmonic framework supplied by the bandora, and the flute to play
an inner part sounding an octave higher than written. The use of the flute in this
way was known in France as early as the s, and may well have been known in
England. The lute then made the crucial move from doubling the soprano line in
its upper part to playing a second inner line. In its mature form the music of the
mixed consort can be divided into four parts. The soprano line is taken by the tre-
ble viol and the bass by the bass viol. Inner parts are taken by the flute and the lute
37 The Solo Lute Music of Richard Allison, ed. John Robinson and Stewart McCoy, with a biographical sketch by
Robert Spencer (Lute Society, Oldham, ), p. iii.
38 Pickering MS, fo. r.
39 Robinson, The Schoole of Musicke: ‘The Queenes good Night’; ‘Twenty waies upon the bels’.
40 Nordstrom, ‘The English Lute Duet’.
The Lute in Consort
E. .. ‘An Almain/Eccho’ for two lutes by Francis Pilkington/Mr Marchant: (a) Lute ,
Brogyntyn, p. ; (b) Lute , Sampson MS, fo. v, bars ‒
(a)
(b)
20
The Lute in Consort
25
1.
30
1. All the notes in this bar have been editorially altered to match the Sampson MS part.
The Lute in Consort
(with its own supporting harmonies on the opening statements of the multi-partite
dances, and divisions on the repeats). The cittern and bandora add rhythm and har-
monic support, with the bandora doubling the bass with its bottom line.
Characteristic of the mature style of mixed consort pieces is the contrasting of
different instrumental groupings. This is especially so in the last section of pavans
and galliards where the lute and treble viol often answer each other in ‘reporting
style’. Nordstrom’s contention is that this answering or echoing between pairs or
groups of instruments is then mimicked in the equal duet. Thus the answering
devices of so many equal duets developed out of the imitation found in mixed con-
sort music. Possible examples of consort lessons being rearranged as equal-lute
duets are ‘Duncomb’s Galliard’, ‘Squires Galliard’, and the ‘De La Tromba Pavan’.
Where pieces exist in arrangements for several different genres the process of inter-
active development is difficult to disentangle and may only be guessed. Examples of
this are Johnson’s ‘Flat Pavan’ and Allison’s ‘De la Tromba Pavan’, which exist in
versions for solo lute, duet lutes, and for mixed consort.
John Johnson’s ‘Flat Pavan’ is a fascinating example. Possibly the earliest form of
this piece was the solo version in C minor as it exists in early sources (Giles Lodge
and Dallis). It was from this that the treble-and-ground version in F minor proba-
bly developed, of which only the treble survives. These two forms were probably in
circulation by the early s.41 The piece was expanded into a consort lesson in G
minor by as the Walsingham consort books include the piece, and it was
referred to in Anthony Munday’s A Banquet of Daintie Conceits (), where one
of his verses was to be ‘sung after the note of the flat Pavin, which is playd in
Consorte’. Probably the earliest consort version had the lute part following the tune,
and such a lute part exists in the Folger manuscript.42 At some point an alternative
lute part developed within the consort arrangement, with the lute playing a line more
independent of the tune.43 Finally an equal-duet version developed in F minor that
incorporated elements of the consort piece.44 Suprisingly, an alternative treble-and-
ground duet version appears in the Trumbull manuscript in G minor, which
Nordstrom suggests could be played within the context of the consort.45 (See Ex. ..)
Nordstrom points to the ‘De La Tromba Pavan’ as a seminal piece. The piece
takes its name from the trumpet-like answering phrases between viol and lute in the
last section. A plausible line of development might have started with composition
as a mixed-consort piece in the s in the version found in the Cambridge and
Walsingham part-books. An alternative to the treble viol part is provided in
Dd.., so that the answering is now between a pair of lutes within the consort.46
41 Solo versions is Giles Lodge, Dallis, Dd.., and Euing; treble in Dd...
42 Folger MS, fo. r. 43 Trumbull MS, fo. r.
44 Trumbull MS, fo. r, Pickeringe MS, fos. v–r. 45 Nordstrom, ‘The English Lute Duet’, .
46 Dd.., fos. v–r.
The Lute in Consort
This version is then the basis for a lute duet in which the trumpet calls are passed
from one lute to another. The final version as published by Morley follows not the
original consort version, but the lute-duet version, now with answering returned to
lute and viol. Tromba effects are found in the final section of three of the Richard
Reade pavans (nos. , , and ), and it may be that Reade and his Oxford circle
developed this technique with a didactic purpose in mind.
E. .. Comparison of versions of the ‘Flat Pavan’ by John Johnson, bars –: (a) solo version
from Dallis MS, p. ; ( b) duet version, Pickeringe MS, fos. v–r; (c) consort version from
Walsingham consort books (bandora part from the Browne MS) with lute part from Folger MS,
fo. r, and an alternative lute part from Trumbull, fo. r
(a)
(b)
The Lute in Consort
E. .. cont.
There are four surviving sets of part-books for the English mixed consort which
are purely instrumental: two in manuscript and two published. (See Table ..) The
fact that the two manuscript collections are earlier than the published ones may
reflect the shift in the period – from the consort being associated with aris-
tocratic private entertainments to association with waits and theatre musicians. Of
the manuscript sources the Walsingham part-books are probably the earlier of the
two, as two pieces are dated .
Four books from the Walsingham set survive, and are marked ‘for the treble viol’,
‘for the flute’, ‘for the cittern’, and ‘for the base viole’. The cittern book is in Mills
The Lute in Consort
(c) Treble Viol
(reconstructed)
Flute
Lute
Alternative
Lute
Cittern
Bandora
Bass
The Lute in Consort
E. .. cont.
The Lute in Consort
Table .. The sources of English mixed-consort music
A. PART-BOOK SETS
Walsingham Consort Books ()
Treble viol: Brynmor Jones Library, Hull University, MS DDHO//
Flute: Brynmor Jones Library, Hull University, MS DDHO//
Bass Viol: Brynmor Jones Library, Hull University, MS DDHO//
Cittern: Mills College, Oakland, California
Cambridge Consort Books (c.–)
Bass viol: GB-Cu Dd..
Cittern: GB-Cu Dd..
Lute: GB-Cu Dd..
Recorder: GB-Cu Dd.. (also contains some parts for flute and some for violin)
Thomas Morley, The First Booke of Consort Lessons ()
Flute: GB-Och Mus (olim K..)
Cittern: GB-Ob Douce MM.
Bandora: GB-Och Mus (olim K..)
Bass viol: GB-Lbl K..i.
Philip Rosseter, Lessons for Consort ()
Cittern: GB-Lcm II.E. (lacking sig.C)
Lute: GB-Ob Mus b.I (fragments only)
Flute: US-NYp Drexel .
Thomas Morley, The First Booke of Consort Lessons ()
Flute: GB-Lbl K..i.
Treble viol: GB-Lcm II.E. (copy also in US-NYp)
Bandora: Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California
B. LUTE AND BANDORA SOURCES CONTAINING CONSORT PARTS
Ballet: lute consort part
Board: lute consort part
Folger: consort parts
Euing: consort lute part
Schele: consort lute parts
Königsberg: bandora and lute consort parts
Trumbull: lute consort parts
Browne: bandora consort parts
Dd..: lute consort part
Sampson: lute consort part
College, Oakland, California, and was available to Beck and his predecessors in the
field, but the find by Gwilym Beechey of the other three books in the s greatly
increased the surviving repertoire. The Walsingham books list thirty-four consort
pieces copied out by what is now generally agreed to be the young Daniel Bacheler’s
elegant and remarkably error-free hand (see above, Pl. .b). Bacheler was working
The Lute in Consort
as a page and apprenticed musician in the household of Sir Francis Walsingham in
. Two of the pieces mentioned in the contents list do not appear in any of the
four books, and some pieces are present in only some of the books. Seven titles in
the books refer to members of the Walsingham family—Sir Francis himself, Lady
Walsingham his wife, and Lady Frances Sidney (the daughter who had been mar-
ried to the poet and national hero, Sir Philip Sidney, from until his death at
Zutphen in ).
The seven surviving consort pieces by Bacheler are found only in the
Walsingham books.47 As there is no lute book to the collection, and his pieces are
all unica, we cannot be sure what Bacheler’s lute writing for the mixed consort was
like. In reconstructing the lost lute parts Warwick Edwards follows the style of
Richard Allison, as he says Bacheler adopts ‘many of the textures used by Allison’.48
A further piece, ‘The Lady Francis Sidney’s Goodnight’, is ascribed to Bacheler in
the Walsingham books, but in the Morley consort collection and the Browne man-
uscript (formerly Braye Bandora and Lyra-Viol manuscript) it is ascribed to
Richard Allison and called ‘Response Pavan’. The confusion over this title and attri-
bution, and the fact that the Walsingham collection contains thirteen out of the sur-
viving total of eighteen consort pieces composed or set by Allison, has led to the
suggestion that Allison and Bacheler worked together at this time, and that Allison
may have also been attached to the Walsingham household.49 Edwards goes so far
as to suggest that Bacheler may have filled in the ‘rhythm’ parts to Allison’s
‘Response Pavan’.50
The other manuscript set, the Cambridge part-books copied by Mathew Holmes
in Oxford in the years –, is discussed in Chapter in relation to solo-lute
music and duets. There is every indication that the consort books of the set were at
least in part produced for the purpose of teaching the Christ Church choristers
instrumental skills. Ian Payne’s work on instrumental teaching provision at English
cathedral churches makes it clear that the sixteenth-century letters patent of some
cathedral organists included responsibility for the teaching of choristers, and per-
haps other boys from the grammar schools, to play musical instruments. By the late
sixteenth century this responsibility was often delegated to specially qualified lay
clerks.51 At Christ Church, Mathew Holmes, as precentor, had responsibility for all
the singing; but another individual, the informator, was responsible for their general
instruction, which included learning instruments. One of those who had this role
47 Warwick A. Edwards, ‘The Walsingham Consort Books’, M&L (), –.
48 Music for Mixed Consort, ed. Warwick A. Edwards (MB ; London, ), p. xviii.
49 Allison, The Solo Lute Music, p. viii. 50 Edwards, ‘The Walsingham Consort Books’, .
51 Payne, Provision and Practice, . There is some evidence that at Ely lutes and other plucked instruments
were involved. The will of Edward Watson (), an Ely lay clerk, and possibly also the choristers’ teacher of
instruments, includes ‘al my books for the Citteren, virginalls, bandora or lute’.
The Lute in Consort
while Holmes was at Christ Church was the singing man John Mathew. Mathew’s 52
probate inventory included eleven lutes valued together at £ s. d., and a
chest of viols at £.53 These were cheap lutes even for the time and surely must have
served for pedagogical purposes. I would suggest that Holmes was not just the
scribe who prepared the books for the boys, but also selected the pieces, helped in
their arrangement, and maintained the books. It may also be that he took the con-
sort books with him to Westminster in with the intention of using them with
the choirboys there.
The four surviving books are for cittern, bass viol, recorder, and lute; the ban-
dora and violin books are missing. The cittern book is also important as a source of
solo cittern music.54 The recorder book has two pages of pieces labelled ‘treble
violan’. These pieces, accidentally copied into the wrong book, plus the several pic-
tures of mixed consorts using violins, is the sum total of evidence for a violin being
used instead of a treble viol, though Holman argues that the term ‘viol’ includes vio-
lin and viol.55 The fact that this book is specified as ‘the recorder parte’ is the only
instance among the sources for the replacement of the usual flute by the recorder.
In some pieces a flute part is present as an alternative to the recorder. The
Walsingham flute book calls for an instrument with a nominal range from d to c¢.
Most of the pieces could be played by a bass flute (lowest note g) at the written
pitch, or by a tenor (lowest note d¢ ) sounding an octave higher than written. Such
a flute may be indicated by the moderately sized flutes in the pictures. A compari-
son of the flute part clefs used by Morley, Rosseter, and in the Walsingham books
(alto and tenor), and that of the Cambridge recorder book (treble), plus the octave
displacement that is discernable in concordant pieces, suggests that the Cambridge
recorder book was for a tenor recorder. The octave displacements were to keep the
recorder in its more unobtrusive lower range.56
Among the pieces in Holmes’s four consort books there are quite a number for
which parts are absent for one or more of the instruments, and in several pieces, for
example ‘Alysons Pauen’, only the lute part survives. This may suggest that not all
the pieces were for the full consort of six. The lute book (Dd..) contains some
sixty possible consort parts in addition to the duet trebles. As no lute book survives
from the other sets, apart from the Bodleian Rosseter fragments, and consort lute
parts from solo sources are few and often poor, this book is of vital importance to
our knowledge of mixed-consort music. The book supplies lute parts to many of the
pieces in the other collections, and the models for those that have to be recon-
structed. Apart from the consort lute parts with no other surviving parts, there are
52 My thanks to Ian Harwood for passing this information on to me.
53 Michael Fleming, ‘Some Points Arising from a Survey of Wills and Inventories’, GSJ (), – at
.
54 Ward, ‘Sprightly and Cheerful Musick’, –. Nordstrom, ‘The Cambridge Consort Books’, –.
55 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, –. 56 Nordstrom, ‘The Cambridge Consort Books’, .
The Lute in Consort
pieces that may be duos or trios, and some lute parts that are simply repeated in the
manuscript.
Of the four sets, the Holmes consort books contain the greatest diversity of piece
types. The most frequently attributed composer is Richard Reade. Reade’s attribu-
tions in Dd.. includes twenty-four consort pieces, and four duets which, from
comments in the book, appear to be intended for a trio of three wire-strung instru-
ments (orpharions are mentioned), doubled by viols. Though no third tablature
exists to expand these duets into trios, the third part may have been included in the
lost bandora book.57 Reade, a Christ Church singing man, received his B.Mus.
degree on July . As he is never given this title by Holmes, it has been sug-
gested that all the consort pieces attributed to him, and indeed most of Holmes’s
consort collection, were put together in the years –.58 It seems that Holmes’s
meeting with Reade, together with the fact that Reade was evidently prepared to
provide and arrange music for mixed consort, was the spur that got the Christ
Church mixed consort project launched. Reade was evidently considered something
of an expert on instruments as he was one of the appraisers of the will of Robert
Mallet in . Mallet combined being manciple of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, with
being an instrument maker with a specialization in wire-strung instruments.59
Morley’s The First Booke of Consort Lessons of is arguably the most influential
source of the genre. It was reprinted in , eight years after Morley’s death, in a
‘newly corrected and inlarged’ edition published by John Brown, which argues
strongly for its commercial success.60 The title-page of the edition acknowl-
edges the lessons were ‘made by divers exquisite Authors’, and that they were ‘Newly
set forth at the coast & charges of a Gentle-man, for his private pleasure, and for
divers others his frendes which delight in Musicke’. None of the ‘divers exquisite
Authors’ are named, but in his dedication to the Lord Mayor, Morley says the les-
sons are ‘some few fruites of perfection of the most perfect men in their quality’. He
says also that he has kept the composers’ best interests at heart ‘. . . whose works that
I might not abase in devoting them to a meane patron, nor abuse the workers in ioyn-
ing them discordes for their true descant’. Morley is at pains to say how carefully he
has prepared the pieces, ‘. . . and not to disgrace my care and travaile, which at the
instant request of my very good friend have beene very carefull, truly to set them out’.
It was suggested by Dart and Beck that the ‘Gentleman’ who paid the printing
expenses was Richard Allison.61 Robert Spencer rejects this idea for a number of
57 Nordstrom, ‘The Cambridge Consort Books’, . 58 Ibid. .
59 Fleming, ‘Some Points Arising’, . Mallet’s ‘workhouse’ held some furniture and ‘ Orpharions,
Citternes whereof one in a case, citternes unfinisht, a flatbackt lute & case, chists, working tooles, with divers
lumber’, valued together at £. s. d.
60 Ward, ‘Sprightly and Cheerful Musick’, .
61 The First Book of Consort Lessons Collected by Thomas Morley –, ed. Sydney Beck (New York, ),
; Thurston Dart, ‘Morley’s Consort Lessons of ’, PRMA (–), –.
The Lute in Consort
reasons. Allison claimed the right to call himself a gentleman through inheritance,
but was by his own admission ‘a poore man’. He had been apprenticed to (or had
served in the household of) Sir Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick before /,
and was not the dedicatee of Morley’s First Booke.62 Even if Allison was not
Morley’s sponsor, his musical contribution to the work outweighs that of any other.
The first edition contained twenty-three pieces, five of which were by Allison, and
the edition a further two new pieces, both by Allison. Five of these pieces, ‘De
La Tromba’, ‘Allisons Knell’, ‘Go from my window’, ‘The Batchelor’s Delight’,
and ‘Response Pavin’, are among the most weighty and elaborate of the twenty-five,
especially so in the case of the last two from the book. These pieces are
different from the rest of the collection in that they were probably conceived first
for mixed consort, rather than arranged from originals for other media.
The rest of the pieces in The First Booke appear to be either Morley’s arrange-
ments of existing works by known composers, Dowland (), Byrd (), Phillips (),
Nicolas Strogers (); popular pieces (like ‘Lavolto’ and ‘La Coranto’); popular songs
arranged by Morley; or rearrangements of existing pieces by Morley. Among the
songs is ‘O Mistresse Mine’, the melody of which is attributed to Morley, but which
appears in a keyboard arrangement in FVB attributed to Byrd.63 This melody is tra-
ditionally linked with verses from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, though this has
been challenged. The Shakespeare link with this setting started and maintained
much of the interest in the mixed consort earlier in the last century, and attracted
sponsorship for Beck’s edition of The First Booke. ‘Joyne hands’ is a rework-
ing of Morley’s three-voice canzonet, ‘See, mine own sweet jewel’. ‘Sola Soletta’ is
an arrangement of a popular Italian madrigal by Girolamo Conversi ‘Englished’ to
the words ‘When al alone my bony love was playing’.64
In general Morley places the larger and more difficult pieces among the first
twelve items in the First Booke, and then progresses to the simpler and more pop-
ular ones. The two Allison pieces added to the edition as numbers and
are elaborate and far from simple. The cittern and bass viol books survive only from
the edition. Apart from the lost lute book, copies of the other books (treble
viol, bandora, and flute) survive from both editions. About a third of the pieces in
The First Booke may be completed with lute parts from Holmes’s manuscripts
(mainly Dd..), including five of Allison’s seven.
Rosseter’s Lessons for Consort () has survived least well of all the sets.65 Only
the flute book has the complete twenty-five lessons. The cittern book has lost sig. C
which contains nos. –. Of the lute part, six fragments (from C, D, D) have
62 Allison, The Solo Lute Music, pp. ix, x. 63 FVB, no. lxvi.
64 The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck; see critical notes, –.
65 Ian Harwood, ‘Rosseter’s Lessons for Consort of ’, LSJ (), –.
The Lute in Consort
been recovered; C from a book binding in . These turned out to contain parts
of nos. –. Referring to Morley’s set, Rosseter says in his epistle to the reader that:
The good successes and francke entertainment which the late imprinted Set of Consort
bookes generally received, hath given mee incouragement to second them with these my
gatherings; most of the Songs being of their inventions whose memorie onely remaines,
because I would be loth to rob any living men of the fruit of their owne labours, not know-
ing what private intent they may have to convert them to their more peculiar use. The
Authours names I have severally prefixt, that every man might obtaine his right; And as for
my industry in disposing them, I submit it to thy free censure.
In naming the authors Rosseter distances himself from Morley, who did not do so.
Rosseter claims credit only for the arrangements of ‘these flowers gathered out of
diuers Gardens, and now by mee Consorted and divulged for the benefit of many’.
Three of the pieces are by Rosseter himself. The other authors he names are:
Allison (), Anthony Holborne (), Morley (), John Baxter (), Thomas Lupo (),
John Farmer (), Dr Thomas Campion (), Edmund Kete (). Rosseter mentions
in the epistle quoted above that most of the authors were dead by . This is the
clearest indication we have that Allison, who is last heard of in , had died by
.66
Despite the loss of so much of the musical material from Rosseter’s collection,
both Harwood and Edwards working separately were able to reconstruct a majority
of the lessons.67 Like Morley’s book, the pieces are a selection of dance-types, vocal
music adaptations, and popular-tune arrangements. The book contains none of the
newer dance forms (corantos or voltes), but does contain consort versions of two
masque dances and a masque song. While it is difficult to make an assessment based
on so little material, it seems that the collection contains fewer of the more elabo-
rate pieces, such as those by Allison in the other sources, and includes more adap-
tations of popular tunes and songs. It also includes galliards that are musically
related to ‘Allisons Knell’ and ‘De la Tromba’ pavans, at a time when matched
pavans and galliards had ceased to be common.68
The existence of the English mixed consort in the period – is of great
significance in the development of the lute in England. The lute is central to the
ensemble. It is Nordstrom’s contention that it was as an extension of lute music,
especially of the duet, that an ensemble developed to include viol (or violin), lute,
flute (or recorder), bass viol, cittern, and bandora. Membership of the consort was
important in the development of other instruments in the sextet. The involvement
of the violin may have been the instrument’s first separation from its traditional role
as the soprano member of the violin consort.69 The need for a cittern and bandora
66 Allison, The Solo Lute Music, pp. x–xi. 67 Harwood, ‘Rosseter’s Lessons for Consort’, .
68 I am grateful to Ian Harwood for this point. 69 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, .
The Lute in Consort
to complete the group would have increased the numbers of them being made, and
in the case of the bandora its association as a peculiarly ‘English instrument’ at this
time would have received more prominence.
The ensemble is an important early landmark in the history of instrumentation,
since a variety of different but specific instruments were established as a fixed
ensemble which composers and arrangers could exploit. Parts written in staff nota-
tion were occasionally transferred from one instrument to another—e.g. flute to
recorder—but the three parts written in tablature (lute, bandora, cittern) were
untransferable. While sets of like instruments may have been the norm throughout
the Renaissance, there is plentiful reference to groupings of mixed instruments,
especially towards the end of the sixteenth century.70 As late as Charles Butler
wrote: ‘The several kinds of Instruments ar commonly used severally by them
selves: as a Set of Viols, a Set of Waits [shawms], or the like: but sometimes, upon
some special occasion, many of both Sorts ar most sweetly joined in Consort.’71 The
specific instrumentation of the English mixed consort is strikingly at variance with
the principle of like groups or of freely mixed ensembles.
The ‘Englishness’ of the group of six instruments is important. It was known and
admired on the Continent, where English cultural influence was strong. English
musicians travelling and living abroad, often as members of theatrical companies,
exported the concept of such an ensemble. The Königsberg manuscript contains a
significant amount of English lute and bandora music, some of which are consort
parts, that may have found its way to the Baltic area through the activities of just
such expatriots. There was indeed an English theatrical troupe led by the musician
and actor John Spencer based in Königsberg in the years –. When touring
they advertised themselves as ‘the Margrave of Brandenburg’s servants, the English
Comedians’, and the Margrave took particular pleasure in Spencer’s music.72 The
parallels with Shakespeare’s travelling company of players in Hamlet are obvious.
Early seventeenth-century depictions and illustrations of the ensemble exist from
the Low Countries and Germany (see Table .).73 The most famous description
of an English consort is that given by Praetorius:
several persons with all sorts of instruments, such as clavicymbal or large spinett, large lyra,
double harp, lute, theorbo, bandora, penorcon, cittern, viola de gamba, a small descant
fiddle, a traverse flute or recorder, sometimes also a quiet sackbut or racket, sound together
70 Ernst H. Meyer, Early English Chamber Music (nd rev. edn. by Diana Poulton and the author, London,
), .
71 Charles Butler, The Principles of Musik in Singing and Setting (London, ), ; Holman, Four and Twenty
Fiddlers, .
72 Arthur J. Ness and John M. Ward, The Königsberg Manuscript (Columbus, Ohio, ), –.
73 Music for Mixed Consort, ed. Edwards, p. xxii; Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, .
The Lute in Consort
Table .. British and Continental mixed-consort iconography
Picture Date and place Instrumentation
Painting, Bal Henry III, –, location unknown lute, harp, bass viol, violin, cornett,
after Hieronymus Francken violin, violin, flute
Painting by Lodewyk –, location unknown lute, virginals, violin, flute, voices
Toeput (Pozzoserrato)
Unton Memorial painting , National Portrait lute, cittern, bandora, violin, bass
Gallery viol, flute
Frieze on wood panel c., Great Chamber, lute, cittern, cittern, violin, tenor
Gilling Castle, Yorkshire viol, bass viol
Ceiling painting , Crathes Castle, lute, violin, harp, bass viol, flute,
Aberdeen cittern, clavichord
Engraving by Nicola de c., Gemeentemuseum, lute, bandora, violin, bass viol
Bruyn after a painting The Hague
by David Vinckboons
Watercolour , album amicorum of violone, lute, cittern, violin,
Cellarius of Nuremberg, bandora
GB-Lb Add. , fo. v
Engravings, ‘The Arches printed London, Sig. Fv: harp, violin, bass viol,
of Triumph’, Stephen guitar, small lute, wind band;
Harrison Sig. Gr: voice, recorder, cittern,
lyre, cornett, guitar, flute, lute, bass
viol
Fresco c.–, staircase well, Group of bass viol, lute, cornett,
Knole, Kent flute, cittern, and music books
Carvings above fireplace –, Ballroom, Knole, lute and viol; lute, cittern, and
Kent recorders
Engraved frontispiece Regia pietas (), lute, harp, bass viol, violon, flute,
Nicolas Vallet plus boy singer and gentleman
obscured by lute
in one company and society ever so quietly, tenderly and lovely, and agree with each other
in a graceful symphony.74
Praetorius’ description includes the usual six instruments plus several others. He
may have got his information second-hand, or heard a continentally based English
group. In England, at any rate, the surviving musical sources show that the usual
six members (with the possible variation of viol or violin, flute or recorder) were to
be expected.
74
Meyer, Early English Chamber Music, , trans. from Michael Praetorius, Syntagma musicum (Wolfenbüttel,
), iii. .
The Lute in Consort
During the period of its popularity the ensemble was known simply as the
‘consort’.75 In his study of the genre, Warwick Edwards adopted the term ‘mixed
consort’ for the group of six. He did so since the term ‘consort’ came to be gener-
ally used after for any group of instruments or voices, not specifically
a mixed group. Edwards also found it preferable to the appellation ‘broken consort’,
which was widely used last century. This term was never in use in Elizabethan/
Jacobean times, but was used for an unrelated group in existence at the Restoration.
The term ‘broken music’ was used by Shakespeare, Bacon, and others in the period
before , but refers to diminutions or divisions created by ‘breaking’ up larger
notes into shorter ones.76 As the lute divisions are a prominent feature of the music
for the English mixed-consort music, such references may imply the presence of
just such a mixed ensemble of six.
On the title-page of The First Booke of Consort Lessons () Morley calls for ‘the
Treble Lute, the pandora, the Cittern, the Base-Violl, the Flute & Treble-Violl’.
While the type of cittern, pandora, and flute are not specified, the viols (bass and
treble) are, as we would expect, referred to by size. The specification of lute as a
‘Treble Lute’ is something of a surprise, as in terms of tessitura the music would
suggest a ‘mean’ or ‘tenor’ lute with a top string at a nominal g¢. There are indica-
tions that in England in the period when mixed consort music and duets were pop-
ular, there was a particular type of lute associated with the single-line divisions
found in such music.77 A Hardwick manuscript of lists ‘for a bandora s, tre-
ble lute s, bass vyoll s, treble vyoll s, for the chest to lay them, in s’.78 This
suggest the basis of a mixed consort at Hardwick, and it is interesting to note that
the bandora was worth twice as much as the lute. In Francis Willoughby of
Wollaton Hall wrote ‘to know if Mr. Creme [in London] can find him any treble
lutes fit for his purpose’.79 Peter Forrester has suggested that the lute depicted in
the painting Death and the Maiden at Stratford may be just such a treble lute.80
The Stratford vanitas (see Pl. .) includes a lute that is similar to the one seen
in the Rizzio engraving (see below, Pl. .). Both instruments are small-bodied,
with a long neck relative to the body. Indeed the neck/body joint is at exactly the
octave position or th fret. Such a neck would facilitate the high fret positions
required in many duet trebles and mixed-consort pieces. The small body would
improve the response of the upper range of the instrument relative to the bass. This
again would improve such a lute’s audibility within a mixed consort. Treble lutes
75 Music for Mixed Consort, ed. Edwards, p. xiii. See also Warwick A. Edwards, ‘The Sources of Elizabethan
Consort Music’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, ), i. –.
76 e.g. Morley gives an example of a plainsong ‘broken in division’. A Plain and Easy Introduction, ed. Harman,
.
77 Peter Forrester, ‘An Elizabethan Allegory and some Hypotheses’, LSJ (), –.
78 Hardwick MS, a, for July , quoted ibid. .
79 The Willoughby Lute Book, [p. ] of the introductory study.
80 Forrester, ‘An Elizabethan Allegory’, . Doubts remain as to the authenticity of this painting.
The Lute in Consort
. .. Death and the Maiden, artist unknown. Shakespeare’s
Birthplace Trust at Hall’s Croft, Stratford-upon-Avon
were in use well into the seventeenth century, as there are several references to such
instruments being acquired for use in Caroline masques.
All the publications of sacred music with mixed consort presuppose a lute
pitched at nominal g¢ for the top course, as does the surviving instrumental music.
The vocal music with mixed consort is more helpful in establishing an actual work-
able pitch, and many of the sacred pieces would be unsingable at a pitch much
higher than modern pitch (i.e. g¢ = ). However, Ian Harwood has suggested that
the instrumental mixed-consort music, though not the sacred published music,
would have been played on instruments pitched significantly higher—something
The Lute in Consort
that may chime in with the specification of a ‘treble lute’ in the instrumental con-
sort publications. Harwood’s contention is that there were two pitch standards used
in English instrumental music in the period around , one roughly a tone lower
than modern pitch (i.e. g¢ = c.), and the other a fourth higher than that (i.e. g¢
= c.).
Harwood bases his argument on inspection of existing instruments from the
period, an analysis of the instrumental combinations listed in Tobias Hume’s
Captaine Humes Poeticall Musicke (), and the limitations of gut stringing.81
Harwood suggests that the John Rose instrument in the possession of the
Tollemache family of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk is not an orpharion as previously
thought, but a bandora at the higher pitch standard. It seems that viols were made
in large and small sizes corresponding to these different pitch standards. He refers
to the work of Djilda Abbott and Ephraim Segerman, who concluded that the
English cittern should be tuned an octave higher than usual, basing their arguments
on the small size of the instrument described by Praetorius,82 though Harwood only
sanctions a cittern a fourth above low pitch. The range of a bass flute at the lower
pitch standard would then encompass the lowest notes called for in mixed-consort
flute parts.83 Only three sizes of lute are ever mentioned: mean, treble, and bass. For
Harwood the mean corresponds to a normal lute at low pitch, the treble to a smaller
one a fourth above, and the bass to one a fourth below the mean.
Many writers on the mixed consort have been preoccupied with the connections
between the ensemble and the theatre of the day, Thurston Dart and Sydney Beck
particularly so.84 Certainly the earliest apparent reference to the mixed
consort is from the play Jocasta () by George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwell-
marsh. Before the first act there are directions for ‘a doleful and straunge noyse of
violles, Cythren, Bandurion and such like . . . [to] sounde for the dumme show’.85
However, as Peter Holman points out, most early references to the mixed consort
appear in descriptions of outdoor aristocratic entertainments, several for the queen
on her summer progresses.86 In this context a number of literary accounts survive,
the most famous of which are: George Gascoigne’s description of a spectacle at
Kenilworth in ; Bernard Garter’s report of a Norwich progress in , part of
which is quoted at the start of this chapter; Thomas Churchyard’s description of a
81 Ian Harwood, ‘A Case of Double Standards? Instrumental Pitch in England c.’, EM (), –.
82 Djilda Abbott and Ephraim Segerman, ‘Strings in the th and th Centuries’, GSJ (), –; ‘Gut
Strings’, EM (), –. Abbott and Segerman suggest a cittern tuned an octave above the normal pitch.
83 Harwood, ‘A Case of Double Standards?’, .
84 Dart, ‘Morley’s Consort Lessons of ’; Two Consort Lessons Collected by Thomas Morley, ed. Thurston
Dart (London, ); The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck.
85 Ward, ‘Sprightly and Cheerful Musick’, . According to John Stowe’s Annales (), , the bandora was
invented in by John Rose. The term ‘bandurion’ indicates a lack of familiarity with the name bandora, so early
in its life.
86 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, .
The Lute in Consort
proposed entertainment as part of the same Norwich progress in ; and an
anonymous description of an ‘Honourable Entertainment . . . at Elvetham’ in
.87 While all accounts point to the usual combination of six instruments being
heard, only the last is explicit: ‘After this speech the Fairy Queene and her maides
daunced about the Garden, singing a Song of sixe parts, with the musicke of an
exquisite consort; wherein was the lute, pandora, base violl, citterne, treble viol and
flute . . .’
A musician who seems to have been involved directly or indirectly with several
of these early spectacles is Edward Johnson, who is not known to have been related
to his famous contemporary John Johnson, but probably was. Edward Johnson was
the leading musician employed by the Kytson family at Hengrave Hall, Suffolk in
the s.88 Significantly, the Kytson household acquired a ‘treable violen’ in ,
most probably for mixed-consort use.89 It is likely that Johnson, who was paid s.
in August ‘for his charge in awayting on my Lord of Leycester’, was loaned to
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, for the Kenilworth event of July . Two songs
composed for the Elvetham entertainment were written by Edward Johnson,
though they survive in settings for voices and viols.90 It is clear from an inventory
of Leicester’s household drawn up in that most of the instruments required
for a mixed consort were available to Johnson at Kenilworth.91
A section of the famous biographical portrait of Sir Henry Unton’s life, now kept
at the National Portrait Gallery, shows a banquet at Wadley Manor, the home of
Sir Henry and his wife Dorothy. In front of the costumed masquers is a mixed-con-
sort group sitting around a table (see Pl. .). The picture is the only one from the
period with the complete set of six instruments. The painting was commissioned by
Dorothy after Unton’s death in , but the Wadley Manor scenes may record
domestic events of the s or even late s. Unton was known to have been a
competent musician,92 and it has been suggested that the lute player in the mixed
consort and the bass viol player in the viol consort scene are Sir Henry himself,93
though this is surely unlikely.
The lute player in the Unton painting plays from a folio-sized book (normally ≤
¥ ≤) which is nearly twice the height of the quarto-sized books (normally .≤ ¥
.≤) that all the other players use. This is consistent with the surviving music,
where the lute part is normally much the longest, due to the elaborate divisions in
87 See The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck, –. The descriptions are from George Gascoigne, The
Princelye Pleasures (London, ); Robert Laneham, A letter (London, ); Bernard Garter, The Ioyful
Receyving of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie into hir Highnesse Citie of Norwich (London, ); Thomas
Churchyard, A Discourse of the Queenes Majesties Entertainment (London, ); The Honourable Entertainment . . .
at Elvetham (London, ).
88 Price, Patrons and Musicians, –. 89 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, .
90 Ibid. . 91 The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck, n. . 92 Ibid. .
93 Anthony Rooley, ‘A Portrait of Sir Henry Unton’, in The Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music, ed.
Tess Knighton and David Fallows (London, ), –.
The Lute in Consort
. .. Detail from a painted wood panel depicting scenes from the life of Sir Henry Unton,
–. London, National Portrait Gallery, no.
repeated sections. The larger size of the lute book may account for the fact that no
lute book survives from the published books, apart from a few fragments of
Rosseter’s book that were recovered from bookbindings. In great houses where
mixed consorts may have been heard, like Kenilworth, Hengrave, Wadley Manor,
Sedbury, and Wollaton Hall, one might have expected servants or family members
to have provided the easier parts such as the cittern and bass viol, and professional
musicians from within or without the household to have played the more difficult
parts, especially the lute part. When sets of books were acquired by households they
would normally have bound each book into separate leather covers. The larger lute
book may have been more likely to have been retained by professionals who had less
money, would have needed more recourse to the music as it is much harder, and
who it seems did not normally bind up their music into books. Thus the lute book
The Lute in Consort
may often have remained unbound and folded over, which would have accelerated
its deterioration. Interestingly the Rosseter fragments are consistent with damage
through folding over.
From its origins in the great houses of England, music for mixed ensembles was
taken up by bands of town waits. These municipal musicians had their origin in the
medieval bands of outdoor musicians, playing shawms and other ‘haut instruments’
to sound curfews and alarms, and to perform for civic functions. By the sixteenth
century they also played quiet instruments, and augmented their municipal income
by hiring their services out for private functions. It has been assumed that the
mixed-consort music for the Norwich royal progress of involved the Norwich
waits. There were only five Norwich waits at the time, but with Edward Johnson
they would have been six, including a known lute player. When Edward Jefferies,
one of the senior Norwich waits, died in , he bequeathed most of the instru-
ments necessary for the consort. Only the cittern was not mentioned in his will.94
The waits most associated with the mixed consort were the London Waits, whom
Morley had in mind when publishing his First Booke. The work is dedicated to the
Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, and includes the following:
But as the ancient custome is of this most honorable and renowned Cittie hath beene euer,
to retaine and maintane excellent and expert Musitians, to adorne your Honors fauors,
Feasts and solemne meetings: to those your Lordships Waits. after the commending these
my Labors to your Honorable patronage: I recommend the same to your seruants carefull
and skilfull handling:
The London Waits were available for private hire, and also performed in the play-
houses.95 They played for some of the court events in January /, which must
have included the first performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.96 Yet the pri-
vate households were also mentioned by Morley in reference to a gentleman spon-
sor. The book’s title-page states that it was printed ‘at the coast & charges of a
Gentle-man, for his private pleasure, and for divers others his frendes which delight
in Musicke’. The reprinting of Morley’s collection in shows that the set of
books achieved a degree of commercial success. One can reasonably suggest that
there would have been provincial town waits who followed London fashions by
adapting themselves into a mixed-consort band, and thus would have wanted to buy
Morley’s books.
Discussion of the musical activities of the London Waits in plays leads to the use
of the mixed consort by English theatre companies. Mention has already been made
of the exporting of the consort abroad through theatre companies. Beck’s thesis is
that, as theatre companies proliferated, and as more public theatre houses were
94 Lasocki, ‘Professional Recorder Players’, i. ; ii. –.
95 The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck, , . 96 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, .
The Lute in Consort
opened, companies relied less on musical actors like Will Kemp and Robert Armin,
and more on professional musicians who organized themselves into a ‘house band’
playing as a mixed consort.97 There is little surviving evidence to support this idea,
and some actors certainly continued to play instruments. There are wills and inven-
tories of actors like Augustine Phillips and Edward Alleyn, which include near com-
plete sets of mixed-consort instruments.98 In an inventory for the Admiral’s
Men had a treble viol, bass viol, bandora, cittern, also three trumpets, a drum, sack-
but, chime of bells, three timbrels, and two rackets.
While the employment of music and musicians in the Elizabethan and Jacobean
theatre was expected by the audience, the amount varied greatly. The private the-
atres—like Blackfriars with a tradition of boy players—normally used more music
than the public companies, and one report mentions a mixed consort of sorts heard
at the Blackfriars in .99 Schools like St Paul’s taught boys to play and sing, and
their skills were widely used. In Philip Rosseter published his Lessons for
Consort, and became responsible for the troupe, which received a royal patent in that
year under the name of ‘The Children of the Queen’s Revels’.100 He combined
being a royal lutenist (from to his death in ) with an interest in this com-
pany in its many manifestations until around . The Lessons were dedicated to
Sir William Gascoyne of Sedbury Hall, who according to Rosseter had a household
which maintained ‘such as can lively express them’. In this it seems that Rosseter
had private households more in mind for his books, though he clearly had profes-
sional interests and connections in the London theatre world as well.
It would be fitting to imagine that Rosseter would have taught his boys to per-
form mixed-consort music from his books. There are other references that link
mixed consorts with children. The Headmaster of the English College of St-Omer,
Pas-de-Calais (–) included mixed consorts when describing the musical
activities of the school.101 There are circumstances linking the compilation of the
Cambridge consort books with the instrumental tuition of the Christ Church cho-
risters. One must also register that the young Daniel Bacheler (aged ) spent time
in his youth concerning himself with mixed-consort music. And surely he must
have played what he arranged and composed.
Public-theatre musicians were usually seated in a special box or music room. In
the case of the Globe Theatre it was a rectangular space some by feet on the
third stage or tier up—about feet above the stage. The open side of the room fac-
ing the audience was crossed by a railing, and was screened by a thin curtain which
97 The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck, .
98 Ibid. A bass viol, lute, cittern, and pandora are among items left to fellow actors by Augustine Phillips of the
King’s Company. Alleyn’s will, bequeathing a lute, pandora, cittern, and six viols, may have been faked (see Ward,
‘Sprightly and Cheerful Musick’, ).
99 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, . 100 Jeffreys, The Life and Works of Philip Rosseter, .
101 John H. Long, Shakespeare’s Use of Music (Gainesville, Fla., ), .
The Lute in Consort
was usually closed while the musicians performed in the music room. The area
could take up to six or eight persons with instruments. On occasion musicians might
be needed on stage, in which case they would have to descend, but normally they
were used for scene or mood setting, for providing dance music, song accompani-
ments, or incidental music before or after plays, or between acts—all of which could
be done in situ.102
A rather more unusual venue for the music of the mixed consort may have been
on board ship. Musicians were often recruited for long voyages in Elizabethan
times. Sir Francis Drake, for example, included nineteen musicians plus sixteen
trumpeters among the large fleet of twenty-seven ships and , men that sailed
for the West Indies in . Ian Woodfield suggests that the eleven musicians taken
by Drake himself comprised a five-part wind ensemble and a mixed consort of six.
A chest of instruments removed from the Defiance contained a lute and ‘hobboyes
sagbutes cornettes and orpharions bandora and suche like’, suggesting that they
probably had the resources to make up a mixed consort.103
With information linking the mixed consort to both the public and private the-
atre, it is frustrating that it is impossible to locate references that specify the instru-
mentation of consorts used in plays.104 Shakespeare uses the term ‘broken music’ in
several plays, and many authors refer to music from a ‘consort’. Instruments called
for in stage directions in the plays of Shakespeare include lutes, viols, fiddles, and
recorders. Other instruments are asked for on occasion: shawms, pipe and tabor,
cornetts, sackbuts, rustic instruments (e.g tongs and bones), rebec, fiddle, racket,
hunting horn, and trumpets. There are a number of play references to the sound-
ing of instruments with wires, and a few plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries
specifically mention the cittern.105 The overall impression of Elizabethan and
Jacobean stage directions is not that a stable consort of the six instruments of
Morley and Rosseter’s books was expected, but that, as today, music and instru-
mentation were varied according to the needs and budget of each production.
Though plays of this period do not contain large amounts of music, at least as com-
pared with the Restoration period, where there is music, it is often crucial to the
action. As the theatre developed it seems that theatre music became more impor-
tant, especially after the setting up of the Blackfriars theatre.
Among composers of English mixed consort Richard Allison is outstanding (see
Table .). His pieces are found in all the four mixed-consort sets of books. His role
in the development of the genre can be compared to that of John Johnson with the
lute duet. Allison’s consort pieces were popular throughout the period from which
102 Long, Shakespeare’s Use of Music, .
103 Ian Woodfield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration (Stuyvesant, NY, ), .
104 Ward, ‘Sprightly and Cheerful Musick’, .
105 Ibid. , ; The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck, .
The Lute in Consort
Table .. Pieces for mixed consort in the four part-book collections
Note: In general titles and names have been standardized and modernized. I have not indicated the many instances
where missing parts can be supplied from among the four collections, or from other sources.
L = lute, T = viol/violin, F = flute, R = recorder, V =bass viol, B = bandora, C = cittern
A. WALSINGHAM CONSORT BOOKS
. The Lady Frances Sidney’s Goodmorrow [Richard Allison] (FCV)
. Sir Frances Walsingham’s Goodnight [Daniel Bacheler] (TFCV)
. Sir Frances Walsingham’s Goodmorrow [Daniel Bacheler] (TFCV)
. The Lady Frances Sidney’s Goodnight [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. The Lady Frances Sidney’s Felicity [Daniel Bacheler] (TFCV)
. Sharp Pavan [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. Phillip’s Pavan [Peter Philips] (TFCV)
. The Lady Walsingham’s Conceits [Daniel Bacheler] (TFCV)
. Delight Pavan [John Johnson] (TFCV)
. Daniel’s Trial [Daniel Bacheler] (TFCV)
. Pavan Dolorosa [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. Mr Allison’s Knell [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. The Bachiler’s Delight [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. Daniel’s Almayne [Daniel Bacheler] (TFCV)
. The Widow’s Mite [Daniel Bacheler] (TFCV)
. Mr. Allison’s Almain [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. Squire’s Galliard (TFCV)
. The Lady Frances Sidney’s Almain [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. The Queen’s Dance (FCV)
. The Battle Pavan (FCV)
. Proveribus (FCV)
. The Spanish measure set by Richard Allison (CV)
. La Vecchia Pavan [John Johnson] (FCV)
. The Flat Pavan [John Johnson] (TCV)
. Passing-measures Pavan (title only)
. Passing-measures Galliard (title only)
. The Voyce (TFCV)
. Primero (V)
. The Quadro Pavan [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. The Quadro Galliard [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. Mr Marchant’s Paven (TFCV)
. In Pescod time (CV)
. Go from my Window [Richard Allison] (TFCV)
. A Pavan of Mr Byrd’s [Richard Allison] (FCV)
B. CAMBRIDGE CONSORT BOOKS
(Numbering based on first appearance in Dd..; followed by pieces without a lute part as they
appear in Dd...)
. The French Volt (fo. r) (LRVC)
. Reade’s th pavan/Mr Doctor James, Dean of Christchurch’s Pavan, made by Mr R. Reade
(fo. r, fos. v–r) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
The Lute in Consort
Table .. cont.
. Reade’s nd Jigge (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRV)
. Lacrimae [John Dowland] (fos. v–r) (LVFC)
. Duncomb’s Galliard (fo. r) (LRVC)
. Holburn’s Farewell (fo. r) [Anthony Holborne] (LRVC)
. Phillip’s Pavan (fos. v–r) [Peter Philips] (LTVC)
. Reade’s Almain (fo. r) [Richard Reade/Anthony Holborne] (LRVC)
. Allison’s Pavan (fos. v–r) [Richard Allison?] (L)
. The Earl of Oxford’s March (fo. r) [Byrd? arr. Morley?] (LTR)
. Johnson’s Delight (fos. v–r, v–r) [ John Johnson] (LRVC)
. Reade’s Galliarde (fo. v, fo. v two versions, the second possibly a duet) [Richard Reade]
(LRVC, T from a second lute prt)
. Nightingale (fo. v) (LTRVC)
. A Jigg, the first, R. Reade (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. Reade’s Galliard to the th Pavan (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRF)
. R. Reade’s th Pavan (fo. v) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. Reade’s th Pavan (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. When Phebus First, Richard Reade (fo. r) (LRV)
. Reade’s th Pavan (fo. v) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. Galliard to the Same [i.e. Reade’s th Pavan] (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRV)
. Reade’s th Pavan (fo. v) [Richard Reade] (LRFVC)
. Battel. R. Reade (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (L)
. A Jigg, R. Reade (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LV)
. Allison’s Knell (fos. v–r) [Richard Allison?] (LVR)
. Sweet Bryer, A Northern Jigge, R.R. (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. Primero (fos. r–r) (LRVC)
. Nutmegs and Ginger (fo. r) (LTVC)
. Reade’s Fancy (fos. v–r) [Richard Reade] (LRC)
. A Jigg Eglantine (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. James Harding’s Galliard (appears twice, fos. r, v) [Richard Reade] (LRV)
. Go from my Window, Ri. Allison (fos. v–r) [Richard Allison] (LF)
. Mousiers Almain (fo. v) (LTVC)
. Alfonso’s Pavan (fo. v) [Alfonso Bassano] (LRVC)
. Reade’s st Pavan (fos. r–v) [Richard Reade] (LRFVC)
. Reade’s nd Pavan (fos. v–r) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. Reade’s La Volta (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. Reade’s rd or Flatt Pavan (fos. r–v) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. Reades th Pavan (fo. v) [Richard Reade] (LRVC)
. De la Tromba (fo. r) [Richard Allison] (LRVC)
. Go Merely Wheele (fos. v–r) (LRVC)
. La Bergera Galliard (fo. r) [Philip Rosseter?] (LRVC)
. Bacheler’s Delight, Ri. Allison (fos. v–r) [Richard Allison] (LV)
. De la Tromba, nd Treble (fos. v–r) (L)
. Dolorosa Pavan Ri. Allison (fos. v–r) [Richard Allison] (LRV)
. De la Courte, st Parte (fo. r) (LRC)
. The Jew’s Dance, R. Nicholson (fo. r) [Richard Nicholson] (LR)
The Lute in Consort
. Porter’s Pavan (fos. v–r) [Walter Porter] (LR)
. Porter’s Galliard (fo. r) [Walter Porter] (LF)
. Emerald Galliard (fo. r) (L)
. My Lady Harcourt’s Galliard (fo. v) (L)
. All night in Venus’ Court (fo. r) (LV)
. La Dolce Nenne (fo. r) (L)
. Tarlton Jigg (fo. r) (LRVC)
. Pavan Dolores (fo. v) (L)
. Reade’s th Pavan (fos. r–v) [Richard Reade] (L)
. Reade’s th Pavan (fos. v–r) [Richard Reade] (L)
. rd Jigg, Mr. Reade (fo. r) [Richard Reade] (L)
. Mrs Millicent’s Pavan. Ri Allison (fos. r–v) [Richard Allison] (LV)
. Flatt Pavan (fos. v–r) [John Johnson?] (LC)
. La Vecchio Mrs Lee (fo. v) [John Johnson?] (L)
Without a lute part:
. Stroger’s Paven (FVC)
. The Sprite’s Tune (RVC)
. My Lo. Chaune Pavane (RVC)
. The Galliarde (TFVC)
. The Long Pavan, J. Johnson (RVC) [John Johnson]
. Do Re Ha Galliard (RVC) [John Dowland]
. Squire’s Galliard (RVC)
. Complaint/Fortune my Foe [John Dowland] (RVC)
. The French King’s Maske (RVC)
. In Nomine Pavan (FVC)
. Galliard to In Nomine Pavan (FVC)
. The New Medley (C) [John Johnson]
. A. H. Thought (C) [Anthony Holborne?]
. Captain Pipers Pavan (FVC) [John Dowland]
. Pavan (C)
. Dowland’s st Galliard (RVC) [John Dowland]
. La Bergera (C)
. Dowland’s Round Battel Galliard (RVC) [John Dowland]
. Tremento (RVC)
. Galliard (C)
C. MORLEY’S THE FIRST BOOKE OF CONSORT LESSONS (/)
. The Quadro Pavin [Richard Allison] (FCBVT)
. Galliard to the Quadro Pavin [Richard Allison] (FCBVT)
. De la Tromba Pavin [Richard Allison] (FCBVT)
. Captaine Pipers Pavin [John Dowland, arr. Morley?] (FCBVT)
. Galliard to Captain Pipers pavin [John Dowland, arr. Morley?] (FCBVT)
. Galliard, Can she excuse [John Dowland, arr. Morley?] (FCBVT)
. Lacrimae Pavin [John Dowland, arr. Morley?] (FCBVT)
. Philips Pavin [Peter Philips, arr. Morley?] (FCBVT)
. Galliard to Philips Pavin [Peter Philips, arr. Morley?] (FCVBT)
. The Frog Galliard [John Dowland, arr. Morley?] (FCVBT)
The Lute in Consort
Table .. cont.
. Allisons Knell [Richard Allison] (FCVBT)
. Goe from my Window [Richard Allison] (FCVBT)
. In Nomine Pavin [Nicholas Strogers, arr. Morley?] (FCVBT)
. My Lord of Oxenfords Maske [Bryd?, arr. Morley?] (FCVBT)
. Mounsier’s Almaine [John Dowland?, arr. Morley] (FCVBT)
. Michills Galliard (FCVBT)
. Joyne Hands [Morley, arr. Morley] (FCVBT)
. Balowe (FCVBT)
. O Mistresse mine (FCVBT)
. Sola Soletta [G. Conversi, arr. Morley] (FCVBT)
. La Volta (FCVBT)
. La Coranto (FCVBT)
. The Lord Souches maske [Giles Farnaby? arr. Morley] (FCVBT)
. The Batchelars delight [Richard Allison] ( edition only) (FBT)
. Responce Pavin [Richard Allison] ( edition only) (FBT)
D. ROSSETER’S LESSONS FOR CONSORT ()
. Captain Lester’s Galliard [Philip Rosseter] (FC)
. Pavan [Philip Rosseter] (FC)
. Prannel’s Pavan [Anthony Holborne] (FC)
. Galliard to Prannel’s Pavan [John Baxter] (FC)
. Now is the month of May [Thomas Morley] (FCLincomplete)
. The Sacred End Pavan [Thomas Morley] (FCLincomplete)
. Galliard to the Sacred End Pavan [John Baxter] (FCLincomplete)
. [Masque Tune, Shows and nightly Revels) [Thomas Lupo] (FCLincomplete)
. Southern’s Pavan [Thomas Morley] (FCLfragments)
. Infernum [Anthony Holborne] (FC)
. Spero [Anthony Holborne] (FC)
. Millicent Pavans [Richard Allison] (FC)
. Millicent Galliard [Richard Allison] (FC)
. Cedipa Pavan [John Farmer] (FC)
. Cedipa Galliard [John Farmer] (FC)
. A lieta Vita [Giovanni Gastoldi] (FC)
. Galliard to del la Tromba [Richard Allison?] (FC)
. La Bergere (FC)
. The Queen’s Pavan [Anthony Holborne] (FC)
. Move Now [Thomas Campion] (FC)
. Galliard to the Knell [Richard Allison] (FC)
. [Time that Leads] [Thomas Lupo] (F)
. Barrow Faustus Dream [Edmund Kete] (F)
. Jig [Philip Rosseter] (F)
. Mall Simms (F)
The Lute in Consort
music for the mixed consort survives. It seems he had a continuing interest in the
genre throughout his working life. His eighteen surviving pieces include some of
the most elaborate and complex in the repertoire. Of these, nine have extant lute
parts. Three of them exist as lute duets, and five in solo-lute versions. It impossi-
ble to say in which form the original version of these pieces was conceived. In the
Walsingham books there are four pieces ‘set’ by Allison, suggesting that his role was
more as arranger than composer.
We can never be absolutely sure that Allison composed any of his pieces
expressly for the mixed consort, though it is likely that he did in some cases, and he
was certainly aware of the possibilities of instrumentation within the group. Typical
of his longer pieces is the subdividing of the six instruments into quartets, or pairs
or trios, which are then contrasted in answering phrases.106 ‘Go from my window’
is especially notable in this context. It is unusual for a mixed-consort lesson as it is
not a dance form, song, or masque piece, but, like much of the solo-lute repertoire,
a set of variations on a popular melody. Luckily the lute part survives in Dd..,
so only the bandora part needs to be reconstructed.107
There are seven variations in all. Section three opens with lute diminutions with
support from cittern and bass viol, while the flute plays the tune. After two bars
the treble viol takes the diminutions supported by cittern and bandora(?), with the
flute continuing the tune. (See Ex. ..) For the remaining four bars all instru-
ments play: the flute with the tune, the treble viol with a descant, the lute with
diminutions, and the rest with harmonic and rhythmic support. The subdivision
and answering continues in the next variation with shorter half-bar statements
between violin and lute, with the flute taking the tune again. The fifth variation is
characterized by triplets in all parts (save the bass and violin, which remain in com-
mon time), with diminutions played by flute and lute. In the penultimate section
the violin, flute, and lute start in canon, followed by lute and violin in canon. In the
last section the violin returns to the tune over fast lute diminutions. This short
summary gives an indication of the unusually varied instrumental mixing in this
piece, but the same interest in timbre is found in some degree in all Allison’s larger
pieces for consort.
Of the names associated with the mixed consort, Reade and Bacheler are of
importance as composers, and Morley and Rosseter as arrangers, although both
these last two may have composed some pieces directly for the consort. Reade is the
most prolific, but his music is confined almost entirely to Holmes’s manuscripts.108
One senses that his interest was peripheral, and was maintained only while the
Oxford consort was in existence. Only the lute part exists for a number of his con-
sort pieces, suggesting that the Oxford group had other part-books which do not
106 The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Beck, . 107 Dd.., fos. v–r.
108 One of Reade’s pavans appears in D-Kl o MS Mus. .
The Lute in Consort
E. .. Section of Richard Allison’s ‘Go from my Window’ from Thomas Morley’s Consort
Lessons (), bars – with a lute part from Dd.., fo. v
17
Flute
Lute
Cittern
Bass
Viol
18
The Lute in Consort
Ex. 6.4b
19
Treble
Viol
Flute
Cittern
Bandora
20
8
The Lute in Consort
survive. These pieces are identifiable as consort parts, as they have diminutions
without supporting harmonies in the repeat sections. While the violin part does not
exist for any of Reade’s pieces, many of them suggest possible contrapuntal imita-
tion between lute and violin so as to make reconstruction plausible.109
Richard Reade’s primary interest was not the arrangement of existing music by
others, as with Morley and Rosseter, and his music includes only two arrangements
of popular tunes. Instead he concentrated on producing pavans (), galliards (),
and jigs (), most simply identified by number, rather than given a title. There is
also a single fancy, almain, la volta, and an arrangement of a vocal piece. It is likely
that many of Reade’s consort pieces are arrangements or adaptations of his own
music to fit the Oxford consort. The many harmonic discrepancies between the cit-
tern and the lute parts show that in many pieces the cittern part was developed from
the bass line in isolation. This fact, plus the rather half-finished nature of many of
his lute parts and the clumsiness of his recorder line, suggests that the music was
assembled quickly from a variety of sources to suit the mixed consort at hand, then
used and discarded soon afterwards without really being sorted out. Pavan is con-
nected to the lute duet ‘Drewries accorde’, and one of his almains is based on a piece
attributed in Dd.. to Anthony Holborne. Perhaps most interesting of Reade’s
pieces is a long five-part fancy based on the theme of Dowland’s most popular solo
lute fantasia (Varietie, no. ) in which, almost uniquely, the cittern is given one of
the five independent parts. (See Ex. ..)
Reade clearly varied his approach when arranging his music for mixed consort,
depending on the type of piece and its genre. Reade’s method in pavan , for which
uniquely we have the model in a five-part version,110 was only to use the cantus and
bassus parts, and most, but not all, of the altus part. An altogether new third part
was then created for the recorder, which may on occasion take elements from the
tenor and quintus parts (as at the beginning) but most often seems newly composed.
This part aims to provide the missing note of the triad at all important points, after
looking at the violin and lute top line, and to add rhythmic interest. The part that
emerges often seems oddly disjointed and unmelodic, with occasional wide leaps. It
uses the very same written range as the violin, and is often the highest written part.
The cittern, and we suppose the bandora, was then created from the bass viol part
in isolation. This is clear from the many misjudgements that the cittern composer
makes in chords, believing the bass viol to be playing the root of the chord when it
is actually sounding a first-inversion and vice versa, and minor/major disagree-
ments between the cittern and the rest of the consort. We cannot, of course, be sure
it was Reade who made the arrangement; it could have been Holmes himself, or
someone else in his musical circle.
109 Nordstrom, ‘The Cambridge Consort Books’, –. 110 D-Kl o MS Mus. , no. .
The Lute in Consort
E. .. ‘Richard Reade’s Fancy’ from the Cambridge consort books; lute part from Dd.., fo.
v, bars ‒
Violin
(reconstructed)
Recorder
Lute
Cittern
Bandora
(reconstructed)
Bass Viol
(reconstructed)
The Lute in Consort
E. .. cont.
Some of the pieces by Bacheler display a creativity in design and instrumentation
akin to those of Allison. In a number of the pieces the treble viol has important
diminutions in the repeat sections. The loss of the bandora part is a pity, but it is
lack of the all-important lute parts that will always make reconstruction tentative.
The opening of ‘The Widows Mite’ suggests a contrasting of the treble viol, flute,
and cittern (plus bandora?) with flute, lute, cittern, and bass viol six bars later.
The Lute in Consort
Answering between violin and lute throughout this piece is suggested by the many
silences in the extant treble viol part, as is the contrasting of instrumental group-
ings. (See Ex. ..)
Allison produced two major publications during his lifetime: The Psalmes of
David in Meter (London, ) and An Howres Recreation in Musicke (London,
). The Psalmes are of importance in relation to the mixed consort, as the four-
part vocal settings have separate tablature parts for lute (or orpharion) and cittern.
The sixty-nine psalm settings are all in simple harmony, and with one note to each
syllable. Unlike previous psalm harmonizations, Allison put the psalm tune in the
cantus, not the tenor. Each piece is printed on one opening of the book as ‘table’
music. (See Pl. .). The title-page mentions they are ‘to be sung and plaide upon
the Lute, Orpharyon, Citterne or Base Violl, severally or altogether, the singing
part to be either Tenor or Treble to the Instrument, according to the nature of the
voyce, or for fowre voyces’. No separate part is given for the orpharion, which is
presumably mentioned only as an alternative to the lute as in the title-pages of many
books of ayres, and would play from the lute tablature. The bass-viol player, who
likewise has no separate part, would play from the bass voice line. The lute part does
not attempt to double the vocal parts in a strict intabulation. It provides a simple
chordal support and largely avoids the psalm tune. A -course lute is required with
a seventh course at D. In the main the chords involved are technically easy and do
not go above the fifth fret. Often the cittern part carries the tune, but needs a bass
part to complete the chords. Allison’s Psalmes need only an easily constructed ban-
dora part to accommodate a full consort of six if the flute plays the alto line and the
viol/violin the soprano. The music is intended to be serviceable for a variety of
combinations, ranging from a full complement of instruments and voices to a sin-
gle voice and instrument.
The full mixed consort appears in William Leighton’s The Teares or Lamentacions
of a Sorrowful Soule ().111 Leighton was a Gentleman Pensioner and knight
who had been imprisoned for debt. Motives of piety and penitence had subse-
quently moved him to write a series of ‘Himnes and spirituall Sonnets’, which he
published without music in , promising ‘to divuldge very speadely in print,
some sweete Musicall Ayres and Tunable Accents’. Leighton was as good as his
word and the musical anthology appeared promptly the following year. The sur-
prise is the quality and range of the nineteen composers he recruited to set his
words, many of the great names of Jacobean music being present, including some
normally associated with secular music.112
111 Verna L. Dimsdale, ‘English Sacred Music with Broken Consort’, LSJ (), –; also ead., ‘The
Lute in Consort in Seventeenth-Century England’, vols. (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, ), iii. –.
112 Sir William Leighton, The Tears or Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soul, ed. Cecil Hill (Early English Church
Music, ; London, ).
The Lute in Consort
Out of a total of fifty-four songs in the anthology, eighteen have consort parts.
Eight of these are by Leighton himself, two by John Bull, and one each by John
Dowland, John Milton, Robert Johnson, Thomas Ford, Edmund Hooper, Robert
Kindersley, Nathaniel Giles, and John Coprario. As in Allison’s book all the parts
were printed on a single opening, so that one book placed in the centre of a table
would serve for all. The three melody instruments are instructed as follows: ‘Cantus
with a Treble Violl’, ‘Altus with a Flute’, ‘Bassus with a Base Violl’. The tenor part
is not doubled by any melody instrument. Though most settings are simple and syl-
labic, there are some pieces that are longer and less homophonic. Only one verse
was printed with the music, the others being supplied by the book. There are
E. .. Opening of first varied repeat from Daniel Bacheler’s ‘The Widow’s Mite’, Walsingham
consort books, no. . Lute and bandora parts reconstructed, bars ‒
Treble Viol
Flute
Lute
(reconstructed)
Cittern
Bandora
(reconstructed)
Bass Viol
The Lute in Consort
Ex. 6.6b 5
many clashes between the tablature parts (in particular major/minor discrepancies),
and one wonders if the plucked instrumental parts were supplied by the authors, by
Leighton, or some other. The tablature parts are not difficult, but frequently awk-
ward to play.
In Robert Tailour published fifty sacred pieces in his Sacred Hymns ‘to be
sung in Five parts, as also to the Viole, and Lute or Orpharion’. The music in this
book is not laid out so that all can play from one opening, and at least two, and
sometimes three, books would be necessary for full performance with voice, viols,
and lute. Only the treble part has words, under which is placed tablature for the bass
viol rather than the lute. The lute part follows after the textless lower parts. The
The Lute in Consort
. .. Page printed in ‘table’ format from Richard Allison’s The Psalmes of David in Meter
(London, )
lower parts are more interesting than those of typical psalm settings. In this respect
the settings are reminiscent of consort songs, and it may be that viols were prima-
rily intended for the lower parts. Both the tablature parts are effectively short scores
of the four lower parts. The lute part is more exacting than those of Allison or
Leighton’s books, and in following the part-writing provides more than mere
chordal support. Tailour writes for a -course lute with diapasons on F, D, and C.
He gives more importance to the viol tablature than the lute, reflecting, as with lute-
song publications, the changing fortunes of the two instruments around this time.
The term ‘lyra viol’ implied a viol part which involved the playing of chords and
melody from tablature, and which could give the impression of maintaining distinct
The Lute in Consort
polyphonic lines in the manner of a lute. This method of playing the viol became
very popular in the Jacobean period.
The popularity of English mixed-consort music is surprising. The three separate
published editions would, even on the smallest print runs, have produced many
hundreds if not thousands of books. These books, the manuscript collections, and
the publications of domestic sacred music with mixed consort, prove that the
ensemble, with its seemingly exotic collection of instruments, must be regarded as
part of the mainstream of English music in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean
age. The lute has a leading role in many consort lessons, and the fast diminutions
that characterize repeat sections show the expectation of a high standard of lute
playing in England at this time. The interchange of music for solo lute, lute duet,
and mixed consort must have been mutually beneficial to all three forms. At least
three of Dowland’s solo pieces were turned into duets, and at least three others were
arranged for mixed consort, apart from his published duet and the four that Morley
arranged and published.113
There is one further consort combination to which the lute may have regularly
contributed, and that was with a whole consort of viols or violins. Mention has been
made of the painting The Courtiers of Elizabeth, which depicts a lute with a consort
of violins, and there is a further representation, dated c., of a lute with a con-
sort of viols, or more likely violins, in an alabaster overmantel of ‘Apollo and the
Muses’ at Hardwick Hall.114 The combination of lute and viols certainly became
common in Jacobean England in the context of song accompaniment. There is one
important publication that calls for a lute played with a whole string consort in seri-
ous instrumental music: Dowland’s Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares Figured in Seaven
Passionate Pavans, with divers other Pavans, Galiards, and Almands, set forth for the
Lute, Viols, or Violons, in five parts. The book is unique in being the only published
collection in table-book format in which a consort of viols is grouped around a
printed tablature lute part. The lute doubles the string texture most of the time, but
has figurations and elaborative devices that are found in none of the other parts, yet
the viol parts are performable without the lute.115 The seven passionate pavans that
open the book are a thematically linked unity of extraordinary intensity, developed
by Dowland from his famous lute pavan that forms the basis of number one of the
‘Lachrimae Antiquae’. Of the other fourteen dance pieces most exist in earlier
versions (usually for solo lute), but a few were either newly composed, or
were reworkings of music by other composers expressly written for the Lachrimae
publication.116 The lute parts in this book are important as they had received ‘from
113 Solo made into a duo: ‘Lord Willoughby’, ‘Lady Rich’s Galliard’, ‘Now oh now/Frog Galliard’; solos in MS
consort versions: ‘Lady Laiton’s Allmain’, ‘Sir John Smith’s Allmaine’, and ‘Fortune my foe’.
114 I am grateful to Peter Forrester for alerting me to this.
115 This is in contradiction to Poulton’s opinion in John Dowland, .
116 Peter Holman, Dowland: Lachrimae () (Cambridge, ), –.
The Lute in Consort
me [Dowland] their last foile and polishment’.117 Clearly they have been arranged
to suit a consort setting and are plainly different to the solo versions that Dowland
may have played.
The book resembles a typical English lute-song publication in many respects: its
table-book format allowing all to play from one large copy; a total of twenty-one
items; a prefacing dedication and address to the reader. As Holman points out, how-
ever, its real origins lie with Anglo-German instrumental traditions developed in
the s by expatriate English musicians working on the Continent, and in partic-
ular the cultivation of the serious contrapuntal pavan.118 Dowland himself states
that he began compiling the book in Denmark.119 The inclusion of violins in the
title is important, as professional musicians of the time often played both viols and
violins, and varied them according to the occasion. If Lachrimae is regarded as more
representative of Continental practice, then English evidence that the lute regularly
combined with whole consorts of bowed strings for instrumental music in
Elizabethan and Jacobean times remains small.
The sacred publications of Allison, Leighton, and Tailour are a testament to the
popularity of domestic psalm-singing in Jacobean England. Intended for the homes
of the gentry, the inclusion of parts for mixed consorts in these books argues
strongly for the continued presence of mixed consorts in the wealthy homes of
England from the s well into the Jacobean period. Gradually the mixed consort
gave way to consorts of bowed string instruments (viols or violins) with optional
support from lutes, theorbos, or keyboard instruments. Whereas in few great
houses had a set of viols, by many did. Likewise among professional musicians
the violin band became ever more popular. The mixed consort with its variety of
instruments may have seemed reminiscent of minstrel music and thus archaic. The
new types of court string music introduced by John Coprario, and patronized by the
Princes Henry and Charles, may have led fashions away from mixed consorts.
Certainly by the mid-s the musicians of the King’s Company at Blackfriars
Theatre were employing known violinists.120 Holman suggests that waits and the-
atre musicians, who had formerly played mixed-consort instruments, were con-
verting to a four-part string band with theorbos by the s. The new arrangement
maintained a six-man line-up. In it the old dual role of the lute, responsible for the
alto line with chordal support and single-line divisions in the repeat sections, gave
way to that of the more sombre bass line plus sketched-in harmony of the theorbos.
117 John Dowland, Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares (London, ), sig. Av.
118 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, –; Dowland: Lachrimae (), –.
119 Dowland, Lachrimae, or Seaven Tears, sig. Ar. 120 Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, .
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