SONGS BY LUTENIST COMPOSERS
Sung by HERBERT HEYNER (Baritone)
WE are already familiar with a number of the charming songs that in Tudor and Elizabethan days were sung to the accompaniment of the Lute, an instrument on which chords could be played, and that thus gave good support to the voice. Previously, concerted vocal music, in the madrigal and motet, had held people's
* attention. Now the pleasures of solo singing came to be known, and we have hundreds of 'ayres' for voice and lute, arranged, in the original part-books, so that they could be sung either as solo songs or as part songs, the three lower voices singing simple accompanimcntal parts.
Spain saw the first publication of solo songs in 1536, France followed, and the first of the English books was that of John Dowland , who, when he returned to this country in 1597, after his travels abroad (he was an internationally famous virtuoso), very soon published his ' First Book of Songs and Ayres,' which immediately became very popular. Dowland was one of the - greatest players in Europe, and was at one time lutenist to the King of Denmark.
Most of the lute airs are love songs, many setting exquisitely phrased thoughts by unknown poets.