> Jon Banks has been championing a repertoire (some textless chansons and > other things) from around 1500 which he argues is for lute trio (or a > trio of plucked instruments, probably of different sizes).
1500 is probably publication date, well after that material was new and popular. Printing of music was a new thing then, O Petrucci's Odhecaton, Canti B and Canti C broke ground in the printers community, but the music within them was well known, even a bit dated stylisticaly. Lutes were just as polite and portable then as they are now. Close the door to your room and you can work on a piece at will, bothering no one; it its too dark, then find a corner of the hall, again, unlikely to bother anyone, especially the cook or nearby scullion. Less ideal was any keyboard, save perhaps the clavichord. Much of that repetoire includes long sustained notes however, which are more natural to a Viol de Gamba. Note that the VdG shares the tuning of the lute, and can even be plucked as lutes are (sometimes to better effect for volume); what lies well on a lute will also lie well on a gamba. Other instruments also fit those pieces well - flutes, recorders, shalms. Orchestration can be a challenge for some, but others cry out for crumhorns, for loud brass, or for voices; gotta try to see. Hayne v Ghezeghem is thought to have been a lutenist, and many of his 14 pieces work well on lute, especially the middle line; he worked for the Duke of Burgundy as a musical ambassador/spy, and is thought to have died at the same 1480ish siege that claimed his patron. the music of HvG (plus perhaps his poetry accompanying it) inspired several hundred derivative compositions over the next two centuries. Bernard Hudson has done the opera omnia for HvG, and noted some 21 pieces attributed to HvG in contemporary or posthumous historical editions, of which 14 are probable on stylistic grounds. Editors back then were quite happy to be generous when it came to attributing the contents of their publications to famous composers, and who is to say they meant the music rather than the text? -- Dana Emery To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
