Dear David, Dowland's "I saw my lady weep", and similar songs are more in the consort song tradition, i.e. solo voice accompanied by four viols, like those by Byrd. The mood is set by the instrumental introduction, but the singer's melody is not pre-empted.
In this context I would mention Bossinensis, whose lute songs were published in 1509 and 1511, very much earlier than Dowland. Bossinensis offers a number of preludes, and he specifies which songs would be appropriate for which preludes. Significantly each prelude may be used for a number of different songs. There is no specific melodic or harmonic material taken from a song, as there would be if you played the first few or last few bars of a song as a prelude. The preludes simply help set the mood - they draw the attention of the audience, like Milano's preliminary chords before playing ricercars after dinner - and they help establish the tonality for the singer. On the whole they are fairly insubstantial things, and any player competent enough to play Bossinensis' song accompaniments, should really be able to manage his own preludes ex tempore. My view is that a lutenist could play a little before a song, if he and the singer agree it is a good idea, but I would keep it short, and avoid playing the notes of the singer's melody. I think it is fair game to play solo pieces between songs, if only to give the singer's voice a rest, but I don't think it is such a good idea to use them as a prelude, if they are really pieces in their own right. By the way, some contend that "I saw my lady weep" is a prelude for "Flow my tears", and the two songs could (or should?) be sung as a pair. Arguments in favour are 1) "Flow my tears" comes immediately after "I saw my lady weep"; 2) both songs have words about weeping; 3) both songs are in A minor, and the first ends on the dominant chord of E major, inviting a continuation in the home key of A minor; 4) one might have expected Dowland to put his most famous piece first in the book, as he did with his 5-part consort Lachrimae. If "I saw my lady weep" really is a prelude to "Flow my tears" - an integral part of the song - then Dowland's Lachrimae does occupy first place in the song book after all. Argument against: 1) There is nothing specific in the book to say that both songs should be played as one, e.g. the songs are not labelled as "First part" and "Second Part" as Dowland does with other songs when they are related. Many years ago, I heard Anthony Rooley accompany Emma Kirkby in "I saw my lady weep". At the start of the third verse he played |\ |\ |\ | |\ | |. |\ | _c__a_________ _c_____d__c___ _d________d___ _e________e___ ______________ ______________ ______________ presumably to add a few more tears to the proceedings. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. -----Original Message----- From: David Tayler [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 24 July 2008 10:26 To: lute-cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: More on lute songs There are a significant number of pieces with introductions, such as "I saw my lady weep" "In darkness let me dwell", and, notably, John Daniel's setting of his brothers tryptich "Grief keep within", to name but a few. An analysis of the extant introductions, in which the music is through composed and integral to the composition, argues persuasively for a style that does not simply repeat or reform some of the song material into an intro. Pieces also have interludes and postludes of various sorts, the Spanish repertory has some of the finest of these. A somewhat different option is to play short pieces before and after each song and string them into a medley. dt At 07:52 PM 7/23/2008, you wrote: >Hi everybody, > >Recently, working with a new singer on my English Lute songs program, I >started to wonder why these songs do not have an introduction or an >instrumental part in the middle or at the end. Were lutenists expected to >improvise or to compose extra bits of music for performance? In case they >didn't do it, are we suposed to do so? I don't recall hearing anybody >(besides Edin Karamazov) doing so. For example, Anthony Rooley with Emma >Kirkby presented these songs with no intro whatsoever. > >Any thoughts? To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
