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Robert Johnson – described on this disc as ‘the founder of English lute music of the Golden Age’ – was Queen Elizabeth’s favourite lutenist. Pieces such as these no doubt maintained his role as court lutenist, but are also historically interesting. Johnson continued the tradition of using familiar tunes and courtly dances such as ...
- English Renaissance Lute Music
- Background Reading
- Prehistory
- The Golden Age Repertoire: Composers, Modern Editions, and Some Recordings
- Dowland
- Duets
- Larger Ensembles
- Songs
- Printed Sources
- Manuscript Sources
by Chris Goodwin, first printed in Lute News 90-91 In its long history the lute experienced not one, but a series of ‘Golden Ages’, and Elizabethan and Jacobean England certainly enjoyed one of these. The chief glory and ornament of the Elizabethan lute is of course the music of John Dowland (1563–1626) which, if no other lute music at all had come...
The first sytematic study of the repertoire was David Lumsden’s doctoral thesis, ‘The Sources of English Lute Music (1540-1620)’ completed in 1955 (some earlier researches having been disrupted by the Second World War); this endeavour was revisited by Julia Craig McFeely in her 1994 thesis, ‘English Lute Manuscripts and Scribes 1530-1630’. This lat...
The lute probably arrived in England in the late 1200s. The first named lute player we know of, ‘Jean le luteur’ was playing at court in 1285; thereafter court records for most of the later kings show that there were generally one or two lute players at court throughout the middle ages. They would have played with a plectrum—single lines and the oc...
Down the centuries England has produced a number of world-class intellectuals, notably in the more concrete, less fanciful, disciplines such as economics, biology and physics, yet the English have never liked to be thought of as intellectuals; one 20th century poet wrote that for the Englishman an intellectual is someone who thinks up clever excuse...
But let us get back to the great master! It is cliché to refer to Dowland as a melancholy composer, exasperated, and effectively exiled by his failure to get a court post in England, on account of his religious heterodoxy; tactless and temperamental, out of joint with the times both artistically and professionally, expressing his sadness in his mus...
One of the distinctive features of the English Golden Age repertoire is the predominance of dances and popular tune arrangements (contrasting with the emphasis on fantasias and intabulations in Continental sources); another is the large number of duets in English lute books. Julia Craig McFeely’s thesis lists over 150 duet parts, though some of the...
Pictures and written accounts depict all sorts of weird and wonderful ensembles, including lutes, performing in the 16th and 17th centuries. Lute trios and lute quartets may have been quite common, though only a little music survives for each of these ensembles; while large bands of lutes played on stage in 17th century masques. One notable ensembl...
It is worth remembering that the in the ‘Golden Age’ printed books of lute songs far outnumbered printed books of solo lute music; the lute is a wonderful accompanying instrument for a singer. Beethoven and his successors may have got away for about a century and a half with persuading people that orchestral music is the most ‘important’ kind of ar...
Music printing in general, and lute tablature printing in particular, came late to England. In Italy the first known tablature was printed in 1507; in Germany, in 1511, and in France in 1529, but in England, not until 1568. In fact, not much solo lute music (as distinct from ayre accompaniments, after 1597) was ever printed in England, though what ...
The musician Thomas Whytehorn, in his autobiography of c.1575 marvelled at the wide currency of printed music he had seen on his Continental travels; in England, you had to write everything out by hand. About 50-odd English lute manuscripts with music in renaissance tuning survive in the British Isles, plus maybe 15 or 16 Continental manuscripts wi...
Recorded 22-24 June 1995 in St. Andrew’s Church, Toddington, Gloucestershire. Christopher Wilson plays a 6-course lute in G by Paul Tomson, 1980. Shirley Rumsey plays a 6-course lute by Norman Reed, 1977. Cover picture: British School; a young lady aged 21, possibly Helena Snakenborg (later Marchioness of Northampton), 1569.
- 2
- CD, Album
- Europe
- Naxos-8.550776
Johnson’s 24 surviving lute works are all here. The include the very fine Fantasie (his only example), which Julian Bream on his 1962 RCA LP ‘The Golden Age of English Lute Music’ attributed to John Johnson, Robert’s father. Its style however may well be more Elizabethan than Jacobean.
John Johnson (c. 1545 – 1594) was an English lutenist, composer of songs and lute music of the Renaissance period. He was attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the father of the lutenist and composer Robert Johnson (9) .
English lutenist and composer; lutenist to Elizabeth I from 1581 until his death. Most of his works, nearly all for lute or lute duet, are pavanes, galliards, or settings of popular tunes. He notably developed the lute duet to a high technical standard. Some of his music survives in MS at Cambridge, in the Marsh MS in Dublin, and the Weld ...
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