I remember reading somewhere (I can't remember where) that the lay-out
of the First Booke of Songes is remarkably similar to, not to say
identical with that of a manuscript source: BL 31390. A facsimile of
that source is available at [1]https://www.diamm.ac.uk/sources/1888/#/
It is worth mentioning that there appear to be a number of exact
concordances between BL 31390 and a number of pieces in the Paston lute
books.
Jeremy Noble published an article (in French) on BL 31390 (in La
Musique Instrumentale de la Renaissance (ed. Jean Jacquot, 1955), which
includes a detailed list of concordances, including references to lute
sources. If you are interested, I can send you a pdf of the article.
André Nieuwlaat
Op za 25 mei 2019 om 20:18 schreef Alain Veylit
<[2]al...@musickshandmade.com>:
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][3]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][4]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. [5]http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Dowland.html
2. [6]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. https://www.diamm.ac.uk/sources/1888/#/
2. mailto:al...@musickshandmade.com
3. http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Dowland.html
4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
5. http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Dowland.html
6. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
