It is enough to click the Send button on a question to the lute list for Google to bring you (some of) the answer one second later... It was indeed the first.
"While he was in London, Dowland published his first collection of music, The First Booke of Songes or Ayres of Foure Partes with Tableture for the Lute (1597). It was an outstanding success - it was reprinted at least four times - and broke new ground in several respects. It was the first published collection of English lute songs, and was the first publication to use the ingenious 'table layout', which allowed for performance in many different ways. At that time, vocal ensemble music was usually published in sets of small part-books, but Dowland used a single large volume with all the parts for each piece distributed around the sides of a single opening. The songs can be performed by a single individual singing the tune and playing the tablature accompaniment, as a four-part song with or without lute, or with viols replacing or doubling some or all of the voices. The collection was also novel in that the compositional devices associated with the madrigal were conspicuous by their absence. All the songs are strophic, most of them use dance rhythms and patterns, and some of them are arrangements of existing lute dances. Madrigal-like word painting and counterpoint are more in evidence in Dowland's later song books, published in 1600, 1603 and 1612. A few songs in the 1612 volume, A Pilgrimes Solace, also show that he had become aware of the new declamatory style of his Italian contemporaries." From: [1]http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Dowland.html I am wondering if the Golden age of the lute in England does not owe as much to the talent of the printers as to that of the musicians ... At the very least, it is very interesting to see Dowland's name associated with a small technological revolution. On 5/25/19 11:00 AM, Alain Veylit wrote: What is the current consensus on the authorship of the verses in Dowland's 1st book of songes (1597)? Any attributions to some one other than Dowland himself? Also, I'll take any information about the actual printing job: is it the first example of the layout with lute + cantus on one page and the 3 other parts on the facing page in a clockwise arrangement so the parts could be read from three sides of a table? (I am personally much more impressed by the technological prowess of the printers than by the poetry of the lyrics, that I find overly whiny ... Dude, you lived in a completely patriarchal society and you still manage to blame her for torturing you! ) Thanks for your input! To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Dowland.html 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
