Dear David, Although you have already had some great answers to this post, there are a few points that can be added, particularly with reference to the early years of Henry VIII's reign.
Otto Gombosi writes in his introduction to his edition of the Capirola manuscript that 'there was a phenomenal Brescian lutenist at Henry VIII's court in 1515' and goes on to speculate that this may have been Vincenzo Capirola. There is no hard evidence for this, but it is intriguing that 'the Duke of Somersettes Dompe' from the much later Royal Appendix 58 is clearly based on Capirola's famous Paduana. This suggests at the very least that the Duke of Somersettes Dompe could have been in circulation years before finding its way into Royal Appendix 58. So it's a potential near miss for your timeframe. Another possible, and perhaps more likely contender for the mystery lutenist mentioned by Gombosi is John Peter de Brescia who was recorded as Henry VIII's favourite lutenist in 1512 when he was given an annuity of £40 a year for life. He remained in court service until 1536, although occasionally returning to Italy. Court records between 1512 and 1533 refer to a number of names that may all represent the same individual: Peter the luter, Petrus or Peter de Brisia, Peter de Bruxia, Peter de Brecia luter, John Piero of Brescia, John Petrus of Bressa, Zuan Piero and Giovanni Pietro de Bustis. Zuan Piero was a member of Princess Marys household probably after being eclipsed as the Kings favourite lute player in 1517 by a lad (probably the young Philip van Wilder according to Peter Holman) so excellent a performer on the lute, that his Majesty never tired of listening to him, to the despair of Zuan Piero. The piece 'Cha la danza Zuan Piero' survives in British Library Add. Ms. 31389, which may be Zuan Piero's only surviving piece. It's an attractive piece of music - it can be found in the edition of the manuscript that John Robinson and myself produced for the Lute Society a few years ago. The earliest surviving fragmentary English manuscript source is probably the lute music from British Library Cottonian manuscript Titus D.xi - there is an excellent article by Chris Goodwin about it in the April 2002 'Lute News' which is well worth reading for its wealth of background information about this era. The three pieces it contains are song intabulations rather than solos, but it's nonetheless worth knowing about. And finally, although it's not strictly lute music, some of the pieces from the 'Henry VIII' manuscript can be intabulated into nice lute pieces - many years ago when asked to play music from this period on the lute I used 'Consort IX,' and 'If love now reigned' and 'Adieu, adieu' by Cornish as lute pieces. Best wishes, Denys -----Original Message----- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of David van Ooijen Sent: 07 January 2011 11:47 To: lutelist Net Subject: [LUTE] English solo music ca 1500-1525? A question to the collected wisdom. I am looking for English solo music from the first quarter of the 16th century. To be more precise, from the first 15 years of the reign of Henry VIII and if possible connected to him or his court in any way, but I cannot have it all, I suppose, so near misses will be considered right on target. Any suggestions welcome. David -- ******************************* David van Ooijen davidvanooi...@gmail.com www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
