Page 58 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

56

MY LUTE,

AWAKE!

LACHRIMAE (1604), JOHN DOWLAND

usical instruments plectrums that then plucked
IN CONTEXT developed rapidly from strings. Zwolle also described the
M the late 14th century dulce melos, a keyboard instrument
FOCUS onward, as musicians refined their in which the strings were struck by
Renaissance skills and emulated court style to metal mallets, the earliest recorded
instrumental music
attract patronage. The first organ use of a piano-style action.
BEFORE with pedals and 12-note chromatic
1507 Francesco Spinacino’s keyboard was recorded in the The rise of the lute
Intabulatura de lauto is German town of Halberstadt in Beyond these innovations, the more
published in Venice—the first 1361. Around 1440, while working portable lute evolved to become
printed collections for solo lute. in the Burgundian court, Dutch the emblematic instrument of the
organist Arnaut van Zwolle drew a Renaissance. Pietrobono, a much-
1545 The appointment of diagram of the earliest harpsichord, feted musician to the Este family
“Mark Anthony Gayiardell and with keys that lifted vertical pieces of Ferrara around 1450–1470, had
George Decombe, viallines” of wood, called jacks, fitted with played virtuosic streams of melody
as court musicians marks the (not unlike fast electric guitar solos)
debut of the violin in England. with a quill plectrum, while an
accompanist called a tenorista
AFTER played the slow, accompanying
1611 Giovanni Girolamo lower parts on another lute. The
Kapsberger publishes his addition of gut frets, tied around
Libro primo d’intavolatura de Blame not my lute, the neck of the lute, facilitated
lauto, music for the theorbo—a for he must sound left-hand speed and accuracy.
lute with an extended neck to Of this or that as liketh me; A more significant stylistic
hold additional bass strings. For lack of wit with change occurred when the lutenist
the lute is bound put down the plectrum. Stroking
c. 1630 English composer John To give such tunes as
Jenkins produces his pavans pleaseth me. the strings with the thumb and
fingers of the right hand, the
and In nomines for viol consort Thomas Wyatt soloist could play all the voices
in up to six parts, continuing of a polyphonic piece. By the late
an English interest in music for 15th century, the lute was no longer
viol consort that lasts into the simply the companion of minstrels
time of Henry Purcell. but had moved to the heart of
court music and composition.

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