The music on this CD spans the sixteenth century and early seventeenth century and represents countries throughout Europe. The lute was the most popular instrument of the Renaissance and the amount of music that has come down to us is enormous, despite the length of time and the lute virtually disappearing from use in the late 18th century.
The lute is one of the oldest of instruments, evolving perhaps from an ancient instrument made of a tortoise shell with some sinew stretched across it to the myriad forms we see in use today throughout the world (oud, biwa, mandolin). The defining characteristics of the Renaissance lute would be the pear shaped back made of many ribs, the bent back pegbox and the double strings (the highest sounding one is usually a single string).
Music for lute is written in a system called tablature which, rather than representing the pitch in normal musical notation, represents the position of the fingers on the fretboard by means of numbers or letters. This system is used today by many guitarists. Italian and French tablature have horizontal lines which represent the 6 highest strings of the lute with numbers or letters placed on or above the lines to show the fret position. German tablature has a separate symbol for each position.
Francesco da Milano (1497-1543) was so highly regarded in his time that he acquired the title "Il Divino", a title shared only with Michelangelo. His works were so popular they were still appearing in manuscripts 50 years after his death.
Virtually nothing is known of the life of Joan Ambrosio Dalza except that two lute books were published by the famous music publisher Ottaviano de'Petrucci of Venice. The two Dalza lute books (the first one being lost) were among the first printed lute music and some of the oldest lute tablature we have. The dances here are of a simpler style than the complicated polyphony of Francesco but have many interesting rhythmic surprises.
John Dowland (1564-1626) was the most famous lutenist of his
day. A Catholic, he never gained the coveted position of lutenist at the protestant court of Queen Elizabeth. He was employed in the court of Denmark and traveled throughout the continent. His first book of songs published in 1597 established a genre which blossomed for the next 20 years.
Francis Cutting (?-1596), John Daniel (1564-1625) and Anthony Holborne (1562-1602) were well known English contemporaries of John Dowland. Kemp's Jig probably refers to the famous Shakespearean clown Will Kemp. The Volt and Current can be found in several sources in different countries but this version came from England.
Hans Neusidler (1510-1563) published several lute books in Nürnberg from 1536 to 1549. Welscher tantz would be a foreign, probably Italian, dance and Gassen hawer means street song.
Vinzenso Galilei (ca. 1525-91) came from a family of musicians and was the father of the famous astronomer. He was an important theorist of his time and a member of the Florentine Camerata which advocated the new monody style.
The Fantasia by Spain's Alonso Muddara (ca. 1515-1580) is well known among guitarists as the 'harp' fantasia. It is in the style of Ludvico, whom we gather to be a harpist. In the latter half of the piece, written right into the score, are the words "from here until the end are some false notes, but when played well they don't sound badly."
Pierre Attaignant was an important music publisher in France in the first half of the century. Ballard represents French music from a much later generation.
So ben mi c'ha bon tempo, Bianco fiore and Dell Attore come from Cesare Negri's dance treatise of 1602. All the music in this and the other important dance book of the period in Italy, Caroso's Il Ballerina, were written in lute tablature.
Little is known about Edward Noteworthy, but it is conjectured that he might be a distant relative of P.D.Q. Bach.
