The Solo Lute Music of John Dowland David Tayler Department of Music University of California at Berkeley Notes for the PDF edition: In preparing my dissertation for both internet access and also for the universally readable PDF format, I was presented with a number of choices. The text is unchanged; however, I have used a proportional font which is not only easier to read but also trims nearly 100 pages from the typescript. Footnotes are at the bottom of each page. The musical examples have for now been placed at the end, and these were scanned as compressed JPEG into the PDF format. At some point they will be put into the text using Sibelius software. As I read over this parvulum opusculum, as the Elizabethans would have called it, I am all too well aware that it should be revised; but for now, it is a dissertation like any other. All material is copyright by the author. David Tayler El Cerrito, California, 2005 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Chapter I: The Sources of the Solo Lute Music ......................................... 6 The songbooks .................................................................................... 16 Lachrimae or Seaven Teares ............................................................... 17 The lutebooks of Matthew Holmes ..................................................... 21 D2 ................................................................................................. 24 D5 ................................................................................................. 27 D9 ................................................................................................. 29 N6 ................................................................................................. 29 Summary of the Cambridge lutebooks ........................................ 30 Other sources in the Cambridge University Library ........................... 33 D4 ................................................................................................. 34 Mss. sources in the British Library ..................................................... 35 JP .................................................................................................. 35 William Barley’s A New Booke of Tabliture ..................................... 38 Foreign sources ................................................................................... 41 Chapter II: The Core Repertory ............................................................... 45 Chapter III. The Style of the Core Repertory .......................................... 54 Galliard to Lachrimae ........................................................................ 55 Lachrimae ........................................................................................... 65 Dowland’s adew for Master Oliver Cromwell .................................... 74 Summary of the style of the core repertory ......................................... 79 Texture, counterpoint and motives .............................................. 81 Dynamics and Range ................................................................... 82 Variation and figuration ............................................................... 83 Section planning .......................................................................... 86 Technical and conceptual music .................................................. 87 Recurring and nonrecurring patterns; borrowing ......................... 89 Coordination ................................................................................ 90 Chapter IV. Farewell Fancy. .................................................................. 91 Farewell .............................................................................................. 91 The style of Farewell .......................................................................... 97 Chapter V. Lachrimae or Seaven Teares .............................................. 100 The seven passionate pavans ............................................................. 103 Other pavans in LST ......................................................................... 106 Semper Dowland semper dolens ................................................ 106 Sir Henry Umpton’s Funerall .................................................... 109 Mr. John Langton’s Pavan ........................................................ 113 Summary of the pavans .............................................................. 118 The Galliards ..................................................................................... 120 The King of Denmark’s galliard ................................................ 121 Sir John Souch’s galliard .......................................................... 128 Captain Digorie Piper’s Galliard .............................................. 134 Summary of the galliards ........................................................... 140 Chapter VI. Robert Dowland: Var and MB .......................................... 143 Varietie of Lute-Lessons ................................................................... 145 Fantasie No. 7 ........................................................................... 149 John Langton’s Pavan ............................................................... 164 The Galliards in Var .......................................................................... 170 Introduction ................................................................................ 170 The King of Denmark’s Galliard ............................................... 172 Queen Elizabeth’s galliard ........................................................ 173 The Earl of Essex’s galliard ...................................................... 175 The Earl of Darby’s galliard ..................................................... 183 The Lady Rich’s galliard ........................................................... 187 The Lady Clifton’s Spirit ............................................................ 190 Sir John Smith’s Almain ............................................................ 193 A Musicall Banquet .......................................................................... 196 Sir Robert Sidney’s galliard ...................................................... 196 Conclusion ............................................................................................. 202 Bibliography .......................................................................................... 206 Acknowledgments Although many of the ideas expressed in this dissertation came about as a result of years of playing and transcribing Dowland’s music, I am delighted to say that the final result, that is, this dissertation, is really the product of my graduate studies at U.C. Berkeley. It was here that the many questions that I had about the sources of Elizabethan lute music were focused by the atmosphere of scholarship and instruction; my teachers led me to a better understanding of Dowland’s music and musicology as a whole. Each member of the music department contributed in some way in the process of completely reshaping my ideas about music. I would like especially to thank Philip Brett (who helped me every step of the way), Richard Crocker, Daniel Heartz, Anthony Newcomb and Joseph Kerman, as well as William Nestrick of the English Department, who was kind enough to be my outside reader. In addition, I would like to thank my father, Edward Tayler (who is an expert nudge) and Lawrence Rosenwald of the English Department of Wellesly College; they both had the amazing ability to know what I was trying to write. David Tayler U. C. Berkeley, 1992 1 Introduction The fundamental goal of this dissertation is very simple: to establish the canon of John Dowland’s compositions for solo lute, and then, on the basis of the principles used to establish that canon, to provide an adequate edition. I have tried to reach that goal by making use of both the necessary approaches: consideration of historical circumstance, and consideration of style. In addition, I have tried to make use of each approach at the proper moment. I began, therefore, with historical matters: evidence deriving from paleography, manuscript study, bibliography, documentary sources, and, in particular, Dowland’s pointed comments in the front matter of his songbooks. To have begun with consideration of style would have been quite simply to put the cart before the horse, because owing to the uncritical approach that has been taken to the historical and bibliographic circumstances, Dowland’s style has to be regarded as something as yet ill- defined if not virtually unknown. The first step, then, was to establish, by means of a fresh look at the sources and the historical context, a canon of Dowland lute solos--to identify, that is, the quite small group of lute solos that are not only reliably attributed to Dowland, but also extant in versions that Dowland 2 himself saw and approved. These lute solos, carefully considered against the backdrop of Dowland’s other works, particularly the lute ayres and consort music, became the basis for the construction of a more refined notion of Dowland’s style. That more precise description of style, taken in combination with a further examination of manuscript and other historical evidence, in its turn became the means of identifying, in the case of pieces or versions of pieces of doubtful provenance, what is genuinely