by MABEL RITCHIE (Soprano)
JOHN BARTLET , composer of 'Ayres' for the lute and other instruments, was probably a lutenist himself. The title of a volume of his songs published in 1606 gives some idea of how the voice was accompanied in those days where now the pianoforte is monotonously general: 'A Book of Ayres with a Triplicitie of Musicke. Whereof the First Part is for Lute or Orpliarion, and the Viole de Gambo, with four Partes to sing, The Second Part is for two Trebles to sing to the Lute and Viole, the third part is for the Lute and one Voyce, and the Viole de Gambo.'
WEEP you no more, sad fountains, is one of the most exquisite of the songs composed by the English lutenist, John Dowland , who was not only a lute player unrivalled in his day in the whole of Europe and a highly skilled singer, but a composer of songs of such surviving beauty as perhaps to place him amongst the half-dozen greatest song writers of the world. He may be said to be the pioneer, practically the creator of what later, developed into so-called art songs, or Lieder, and in his manner of combining voice f and accompaniment so that each is an essential complement of the other in the design of his songs he can claim Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and particularly Hugo Wolf as his lineal descendants.