Lute (Arab. ‘ūd ; Fr. luth ; Ger. Laute ; It. lauto , leuto , liuto ; Sp.

laúd )
Klaus Wachsmann, James W. McKinnon, Robert Anderson, Ian Harwood, Diana Poulton, David van Edwards, Lynda
Sayce and Tim Crawford

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40074
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

A plucked chordophone, made of wood, of Middle Eastern origin ( see ‘Ūd ) which flourished
throughout Europe from medieval times to the 18th century. Broader, generic uses of the term are
discussed in §1.

1. The generic term.

Klaus Wachsmann

In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system (Sachs and Hornbostel, A1914) the term ‘lute’ covers
those ‘composite chordophones’ – string instruments in which a string bearer and a resonator are
‘organically united’ and cannot be separated without destroying the instrument – in which the plane of
the string runs parallel with the soundtable ( figs.1 and 2 ). This definition excludes harps and zithers
but includes pluriarcs (or bow lutes) ( see Gabon ), lyres of various sorts and ‘handle lutes’ proper. The
following excerpt from Hornbostel and Sachs (from the GSJ translation, with minor alterations) shows
the classification of handle lutes (for their complete classification of lute types see Chordophone ):

321.3 Handle lutes: the string bearer is a plain handle; subsidiary necks, as e.g. in the Indian
prasārinī vī ṇ ā are disregarded, as are also lutes with strings distributed over several necks,
like the harpo-lyre, and those like the lyre-guitars, in which the yoke is merely ornamental

321.31 Spike lutes: the handle passes diametrically through the resonator

321.311 Spike bowl lutes: the resonator consists of a natural or carved-out bowl – found in
Persia [now Iran], India, Indonesia

321.312 Spike box lutes or spike guitars: the resonator is built up from wood – found in Egypt
(rabāb)

321.313 Spike tube lutes: the handle passes diametrically through the walls of a tube – found
in China, Indochina [now Vietnam]

321.32 Necked lutes: the handle is attached to or carved from the resonator, like a neck

321.321 Necked bowl lutes (mandolin, theorbo, balalaika)

321.322 Necked box lutes or necked guitars: (violin, viol, guitar) NB a lute whose body is
built up in the shape of a bowl is classified as a bowl lute

321.33 Tanged lutes: the handle ends within the body resonator

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Common usage also excludes bowed instruments (such as the violin). However, the Hornbostel-Sachs
classification provides suffixes for use with any division of the class of chordophones to indicate the
method of sounding; thus, for example, a violin if played with a bow is classified as a bowed lute.

Examples of plucked lutes: (a) sitār (India); (b) yüeh-ch’in (China); (c) shamisen (Japan); (d) ‘ūd (Syria); (e)
ukulele; (f) gurmi (Niger)

Examples of bowed lutes: (a) violin; (b) rabāba (Syria); (c) ching-hu (China); (d) rebab tiga tali (West
Malaysia); (e) sāraṅgī (India); (f) rebab (North Africa); (g) lira (Crete)

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Spike lutes and necked lutes differ from each other by the manner in which neck and resonator are
assembled. Fig.3 illustrates possibilities of assembly as found in a series of instruments of the lute
family (played with a bow) from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. If the neck clearly passes through
the resonator, as it does in the first four examples, the label ‘spiked lute’ applies. But in six cases the
handle is ‘attached’, and in this sense the instruments are ‘necked lutes’. However, the examples show
that there are several transitional forms to which neither label applies well; hence a third category has
been added to the Hornbostel-Sachs classification above, under the code 321.33, for instruments in
which, as Hornbostel himself described it, ‘the handle ends within the body’.

Sachs ascribed the earliest types to a period from the 4th to the 2nd millennium BCE, basing his
conclusion on cultural geography. Seen in the perspective of human development, lutes are in any
event a comparatively late invention. Because the use of a bow to play string instruments is even more
recent – the earliest documentation dates from around the end of the 1st millennium CE – the
discussion of ancient lutes in §2 deals exclusively with plucked instruments.

2. Ancient lutes.
James W. McKinnon and Robert Anderson

Two types of ancient lute are clearly distinguishable: the earlier long-necked lute and the short-necked
lute. There is a wide range of difference within each type, but the most common features of the long-
necked lute are an unfretted, rod-like neck and a small oval or almond-shaped body, which before the
advent of wood construction was fashioned from a gourd or tortoise shell. In many early examples
where the table is of hide, the neck or spike is attached to it by piercing it a number of times in the
manner of stitching. The strings, usually two, are attached at the lower end of the spike in varying
ways and are bound at the top by ligatures from which hang decorative tassels. Pegs were not used
until comparatively late in the instrument's history.

The long-necked lute is now thought (by Turnbull and Picken, for example) to have originated among
the West Semites of Syria. Turnbull (A1972) has argued convincingly for its earliest appearance being
that on two cylinder seals ( fig.4a ) of the Akkadian period (c 2370–2110 BCE); on one the lute is in the
hands of a crouching male who plays while a birdman is brought before a seated god. In contrast to the
draped female harpists, the lutenists of early Mesopotamia are men, sometimes shown naked or with
animals. None of these instruments has survived, but the lute's popularity is attested by many objects
of the Babylonian period. The Louvre possesses a Babylonian boundary stone, found at Susa, which
shows bearded men with bows on their backs playing the lute in the company of such animals as the
lion, panther, antelope, horse, sheep, ox, and an ostrich. In the the early 2nd millennium BCE the lute is
also attested for the Hittite Old Kingdom: a sherd from Alishar Höyük has preserved the end of a neck
with two strings hanging from it.

The lute first appeared in Egypt as a result of Hyksos influence, which opened the country to Western
Asiatic ideas. In the New Kingdom (1550–1070 BCE) the long-necked lute was often represented in
banquet scenes, played either by men or women. The two main types of instrument, with round
(usually a tortoise shell) or oval soundbox, appear in a scene now at the British Museum showing
details of the frets and soundholes as well as the plectrum. The earliest Egyptian evidence of the lute
to survive is a soundbox now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and there is a well-preserved
instrument from the Theban tomb of the singer Ḥarmose in the Cairo Museum (Dynasty 18, 1550–

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1320). The lute had a function in ritual processions such as those depicted in the Luxor temple at the
festival of Opet, when a number of players performed together. It appeared more often, though, in the
chamber groups that featured at court functions and official banquets. The end of the neck is
sometimes carved with the head of a goose or falcon. This probably had religious significance, as is
clearly the case when a Hathor head is carved. The dwarf-god Bes, himself probably of Asiatic origin, is
an adept at the lute, and satirical scenes show it in the hands of a crocodile.

(a) Long-necked lute on a Mesopotamian cylinder seal, Akkadian period, c2370–2110 BCE (British Museum,
London); (b) Long-necked lute and arched harp: detail from a painting in the tomb of Djeserkare‘sonb,
Thebes, from the time of Tuthmosis IV (reigned 1425–1417 BCE); (c) Short-necked lute: terracotta figurine
(3rd century BCE) from Tanagra (Musée du Louvre, Paris)

Musées Nationaux, Paris

Greco-Roman lutes ( see Pandoura ), which are depicted in a number of Hellenistic sculptures and on
late Roman sarcophagi, are comparatively rare. They appear to have at least three strings, plucked
with the fingers, and a thick unfretted neck. (The evidence indicating this last feature, however, may
be influenced by the sculpture medium.) One depiction, a terracotta in the Louvre (see fig.4c), shows
the body tapering to form the neck in the manner of the short-necked lute. The surviving
representations from Byzantium, most notably a 5th-century mosaic from the former imperial palace of
Istanbul and a 6th-century mosaic from a church near Shahhat, Libya, show lutes of the pandoura type.

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The short-necked lute, which is characterized by a wooden body tapering off to form the neck and
fingerboard, probably also originated in Asia. There are only rare representations of it until the first
centuries BCE. A number of statuettes and reliefs (see Geiringer, A1927–8, pls.1–3) are preserved from
the Gandhara culture of the time, named from an area in north-west India under the influence of Greek
civilization; these show short-necked lutes with a pear-shaped body, a frontal string-holder, lateral pegs
and four or five strings plucked with a plectrum. The Sassanid lute or barba ṭ, as shown on a 6th-
century silver cup from Kalar Dasht, was of this type. Apparently these instruments are related to
those lutes that spread eastwards to China and Japan, as well as to the Arabian ‘ūd, the immediate
ancestor of the European classical lute.

3. Structure of the Western lute.

Ian Harwood and Diana Poulton, revised by David van Edwards

The structure of the Western lute evolved gradually away from its ancestor the Arabian ‘ūd, though
some features have remained sufficiently consistent to constitute defining characteristics. Chief among
these are: a vaulted back, pear-shaped in outline and more or less semicircular in cross-section, made
up of a number of separate ribs; a neck and fingerboard tied with gut frets; a flat soundboard or belly
in which is carved an ornate soundhole or ‘rose’; a bridge, to which the strings are attached, glued
near the lower end of the soundboard; a pegbox, usually at nearly a right angle to the neck, with
tuning-pegs inserted laterally; and strings of gut, usually arranged in paired courses.

The ribs, of which the body is constructed, are thin (typically about 1·5 mm) strips of wood, bent over a
mould and glued together edge to edge to form a symmetrical shell. Although the overall sizes of lutes
vary considerably, there is much less variation in the thicknesses of their constituent parts, and even
very large lutes have ribs of less than 2 mm. The glue joints between the ribs are reinforced inside with
narrow strips of paper or parchment. Many surviving lutes also have five or six strips of, usually,
parchment glued round inside the bowl across the line of the ribs. The number of ribs varies according
to date and style from only seven to up to 65, but it is always an odd number because lute backs are
built outwards from a single central rib. Many kinds of wood, even sometimes ivory, have been used for
the back. Maple and yew were the favoured local woods but exotic woods from South America and East
Asia, such as rosewood, kingwood and ebony, were used as they became available in the 16th century.
The extent of their use by 1566 is revealed in the inventory of Raimund Fugger (see Smith, B1980). At
the lower end, where these ribs taper together, they are reinforced internally with a strip of softwood
bent to fit, and externally with a capping strip, usually of the same material as the ribs. At the other
end the ribs are glued to a block, often of softwood, to which the neck is attached. In most pictures of
medieval lutes up to about 1500, as in the early ‘ūd, the ribs are shown as flowing in a smooth curve
into the line of the neck and in these cases the end of the neck itself, suitably rebated, may have
formed the block to which the ribs were glued. However, by 1360 there are already some pictures
showing lutes with a sharp angle between neck and body, implying that the separate block, which is
universally present in surviving lutes, was not unknown. The overlap of these two forms spanned at
least 200 years; both forms are depicted in The Last Judgement by Hieronymus Bosch (c 1500, Vienna
Academy). In the later two-part construction the joint is a simple glued butt joint, secured with one or
more nails driven through the block into the end-grain of the neck. This simple joint proved adequate
during the remainder of the lute's history.

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Most surviving lutes from the early 16th century have been re-necked in later styles but iconographical
sources reveal that early necks appear most often to have been made of a single piece of hardwood
such as sycamore or maple to match the body. In later and surviving lutes after about 1580, the neck is
most often veneered in a decorative hardwood, often ebony, sometimes striped or inlaid with ivory, on a
core of sycamore or other common hardwood. At first, throughout the medieval period and into the
Renaissance, necks were semicircular or deeper in cross-section. As the number of courses increased
through the 16th and 17th centuries, the necks became correspondingly wider, necessitating a change
of left-hand position to enable stretches across to the bass strings. This meant that a thinner neck was
more comfortable. Baron (C 1727) commented that Johann Christian Hoffmann (1683–1750) made the
necks of his lutes to fit the hand of their owner, unlike his father Martin Hoffmann (1653–1719), who
made his necks too thick.

Features of the Western 16-century lute

Separate fingerboards are often not very apparent in pictures of medieval lutes, leading to the
supposition that they were either made of boxwood or simply constituted the flat top surface of the
neck. Sometimes when there is a marked change of colour between the ‘fingerboard’ and the
soundboard, the join occurs so far down the soundboard as to be beyond any possible neck block; a
separate fingerboard is therefore structurally impossible. Instead, the change of colour must result
from a protective coat of something like varnish. Surviving lutes from the 1580s onwards almost
universally have separate ebony fingerboards set flush with the soundboard and, after about 1600,
usually with separate ‘points’ decorating the joint between the fingerboard and soundboard ( fig.5 ).
The lutes of Tielke in the 18th century often had multiple ‘points’ (see G. Hellwig, B1980). Medieval
and Renaissance lute fingerboards were usually flat, even the wide chitarrone and theorbo
fingerboards, but from about 1700 makers started to give a curve to their fingerboards, helping the lie
of the frets and making fingering easier.

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At the back of the top end of the neck a rebate is cut out to form a housing for the pegbox. This same
design of joint, with or without a reinforcing nail into the end-grain of the neck, was used throughout
the history of the lute, as was the basic form of the pegbox: a straight-sided box, closed at the back,
open at the front and tapering slightly in both width and depth. However, after about 1595 various
branches of the lute family also developed different and characteristic pegbox forms in order to
accommodate the longer bass strings needed to extend the range of the lute downwards. Slender
tapering hardwood tuning-pegs were inserted from the sides. Medieval pegs appear often to have been
made of boxwood, but later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, fruitwood such as plum seems to have been
a preferred material, though these were often stained black.

The soundboard is a flat straight-grained softwood plate, nowadays mostly thought of as Picea abies or
Picea excelsa (though historically the types of wood used may have included species of Pinus and
Abies) into which is carved an ornamental rose soundhole, whose pattern often shows decidedly Arabic
influence (see Wells, D1981). However, it is noticeable that iconography does not support a continuous
tradition of rose design from the Arabic ‘ūd; most medieval pictures of lutes feature gothic designs,
and the frequency of Arabic patterns in the later surviving lutes may reflect rather the contemporary
interest in such designs by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Dürer. The soundboard is often made
from the two halves joined along the centre line, but on larger instruments several pieces may be used.
Most surviving lute soundboards are quite thin, often about 1·5 mm. However, there is some support
for the view that the very earliest soundboards, dating from about 1540, may have been rather thicker,
and that they were made progressively thinner as the number of the supporting bars was increased
(see Nurse, D1986). Early lutes from before the 1590s usually had no edging to the soundboard. After
that, often an ebony or hardwood strip was rebated into half the depth of the soundboard edge as a
protective measure. Later still, when the fashion for re-using old soundboards was in sway (see Lowe,
B1976), a ‘lace’ of parchment or cloth with silver threads was often used to wrap the edge, possibly to
cover pre-existing wear.

Bridge designs went through a slow evolution, particularly in the shape of the decorative ‘ears’ which
terminate both ends, but were consistently made of a light hardwood such as pear, plum or walnut,
sometimes stained black, and were glued directly to the surface of the soundboard. Their cross-
sectional design was very cleverly arranged to minimize stress at the junction with the thin and flexible
soundboard. Holes drilled through the bridge took the strings, which were tied so that they were
supported by a loop of the same string rather than by a saddle as in the modern guitar. This has a
marked effect on the tone of the instrument, and contributes to the sweetness of the lute's sound.

The tension of the strings, because they are pulling directly on the soundboard, tends to cause it to
distort. This is resisted by a number of transverse bars of the same wood as the soundboard, glued on
edge across its underside. These bars, besides supporting the soundboard, have an important effect on
the sound quality. By dividing the soundboard into a number of sections, each with a relatively high
resonant frequency, they cause it to reinforce the upper harmonics produced by a string rather than its
fundamental tone. This is matched by the strings themselves, which are quite thin compared with
those of a modern guitar; a thin string tuned to a certain note produces more high harmonics than a
thicker string tuned to the same note. Thus the whole acoustical system of the lute is designed to give
a characteristically clear, almost nasal, sound ( see also Acoustics, §II, 8 ).

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4. History.
Ian Harwood and Diana Poulton, revised by David van Edwards

The European lute derives both in name and form from the Arab instrument known as the ‘Ūd , which
means literally ‘the wood’ (either because it had a soundboard of wood as distinct from a parchment
skin stretched over the body, or because the body itself was built up from wooden strips rather than
made from a hollow gourd). The Arab ‘ūd was introduced into Europe by the Moors during their
conquest and occupation of Spain (711–1492). Pictorial evidence shows Moorish ‘ūd players, and 9th-
and 10th-century accounts tell of visits of famous players such as Ziryāb to the court of the Andalusian
emir ‘Abd al-Raḥmān II (822–52). The ‘ūd was not confined to Muslims, however, as is shown by
illustrations to the Cantigas de Santa María of Alfonso el Sabio (1221–84) which include players in
distinctive Christian costume However, from pictorial and written evidence it is clear that by 1350 what
we must now call lutes, since there is no longer any connection with Arab musicians, had spread very
widely throughout Europe, even though trading and cultural links with Moorish Spain were not well
developed. We need to look elsewhere for a route that would lead to the eventual domination of
European lute making by numerous German families who came originally from around the Lech valley
region and Bavaria. Bletschacher (B1978) has argued that this was due largely to the royal visits of
Friedrich II with his magnificent Moorish Sicilian retinue to the towns in this valley between 1218 and
1237. The valley was a main north–south trading route across the Alps, with the necessary raw
materials growing there in abundance, so it would have been a natural focus for any such development
to occur, even more so following the Venetians' capture of Constantinople in 1204 which so greatly
increased their trading activities with the Near East. The ‘ūd is still in use although it no longer has
frets. Over the centuries it has undergone structural changes analogous to those of the lute, and thus
differs from both the original ‘ūd and the medieval lute.

As no lutes from before the 16th century have survived, information must be gathered from pictures,
sculpture and written descriptions. These indicate that the lute has usually had its strings in pairs, and
that at first there were only four such ‘courses’ From the start, lutes were made in widely different
sizes, and therefore of different pitches. Both pictorial and written evidence point to the use of
different sized lutes for treble and ground duet performance (see Polk, F1992). During the 15th
century a fifth course was added. Masaccio depicted two five-course lutes in his altarpiece, Virgin and
Child (1426; now in the National Gallery, London). Later, in his De inventione et usu musicae (c 1481–
3), Tinctoris mentioned a sixth course and there are even tablatures from this period calling for a
seven-course lute, though no contemporaneous pictures show one.

The earliest extant account of structural details for the European lute is in a manuscript of about 1440
written by Henri Arnaut de Zwolle (see Harwood, D1960). Arnaut described both the lute itself and the
mould on which it was built, combining the two in the same diagram His design was unmeasured but
instead was worked out in terms of geometrical proportion, including the positions of bridge,
soundhole and three transverse bars. Almost 200 years later, Mersenne (1636) described the design
and construction of a lute by remarkably similar methods. By this time the number of soundboard bars
had doubled, but the placing of three of them, as well as that of the soundhole and bridge, corresponds
with that given by Arnaut. There can be no doubt that there was a well-established tradition of
instrument design by geometrical methods, going back to the ‘ūd at least as far as the 9th and 10th
centuries (see Bouterse, D1979). It is perhaps significant that a portrait (1562) of the lute maker

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Gaspar Tieffenbrucker surrounded by his lutes and other instruments shows him holding a pair of
dividers. However, when Arnaut's design is compared to lutes shown in most paintings of the period, it
is in fact rather different, being oddly rounded at the top of the body. The very long neck he specifies is
almost never shown. This suggests that, as an enquiring scholar, he may have been given the general
principles of design by the lute maker(s) he consulted, but not the exact relationships which determine
the precise shape and which may have been regarded as a craft secret.

Medieval lutes usually had two circular roses, one large and more or less halfway between the bridge
and the neck, as specified by Arnaut, the other much smaller and higher up the body close to the
fingerboard. The large rose was occasionally of the ornate ‘sunken’ variety, often with designs similar
to some gothic cathedral windows. This may have been intentional, for Arnaut calls the rose in his
drawing ‘Fenestrum’. Around 1480 there was even a brief fashion for the upper rose to be in the form
of a lancet window, and interestingly just such a rose has survived in the clavicytherium now in the
RCM, London, which has been dated to about 1480 (see E. Wells: ‘The London Clavicytherium’, EMc,
vi, 1978, pp.568–71).

The ‘ūd was, and still is, played with a plectrum, and at first the same method was used for the lute
(see figs.4 and 5). With this technique it was probably mainly a melodic instrument, playing a single
line of music, albeit highly ornate, with perhaps strummed chords at important points. However, some
of the very early plectra are shown as large and solid looking, implying that the lute may also have
been used as a percussive rhythm instrument rather like the Romanian cobză, which closely resembles
the very early medieval lute, especially in the wide spacing of the strings at the bridge and the
shortness of the steeply tapering neck (see Lloyd, B1960). This may explain the early drone tunings
(see §5 below).

During the second half of the 15th century, there was a change to playing with the fingertips, though,
as Page (B1981) pointed out, the two methods continued for some time side by side. Tinctoris (c 1481–
3) wrote of holding the lute ‘while the strings are struck by the right hand either with the fingers or
with a plectrum’, but did not imply that the use of the fingers was a novelty. However, the change was
very significant for the lute's future development, for it allowed the playing of several parts at once,
and meant that the huge repertory of vocal part music both sacred and secular became available to
lute players. This function was made easier by the invention about this time of special systems of
notation known as tablature, into which much of this repertory was transcribed (intabulated). There
were three main kinds of tablature for the lute, developed in Germany, France and Italy respectively. A
fourth early system, ‘Intavolatura alla Napolitana’, was also used from time to time. Of the four main
types the French may have been the earliest. The German one was probably written during the lifetime
of Conrad Paumann (c 1410–1473), the supposed inventor of the system. Although Tinctoris had
mentioned a six-course lute, these first tablatures, and indeed the very names by which the strings of
the instrument were known, suggest five courses as still the most usual number at this time.

By about 1500 a sixth course was commonly in use, which extended the range of the open strings by
another 4th to two octaves. This may have been enabled by improvements in string making. Gut was
used for all the strings and it was usual on the two or three lowest courses to set one of the pair with a
thin string tuned an octave higher, to lend some brilliance to the tone of its thick neighbour.

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By 1500 the first written records confirm the existence of several lute-making families in and around
Füssen in the Lech valley. Most of the famous names of 16th- and 17th-century lute making seem to
have originated from around this small area of southern Germany. By 1562 the Füssen makers were
sufficiently well established to form a guild with elaborate regulations which have survived (see
Bletschacher, B1978, and Layer, B1978). A careful reading of these regulations reveals how much they
were predicated on the idea of export. They also show an organized tendency to keep the trade within
individual families, which resulted in much intermarriage. This was a powerful force for continuity
which clearly lasted for centuries. However, the number of masters who could set up a workshop in the
town was limited to 20, so there was a built-in pressure to emigrate. It was also precisely this area
which was devastated first by the Peasants' Revolt of 1525, the war against the Schmalkaldic League
(1546–55), and finally by the Thirty Years War which killed more than half the population of central
Europe. It is hardly surprising that lute makers, who already had international connections, moved
away from the area in such numbers.

Many settled in northern Italy, no doubt attracted by the country's wealth and fashion but also perhaps
by the access to exotic woods imported via Venice. The tradition of intermarriage meant that they
remained together in colonies and did not become much integrated into Italian society. Luca Maler (
see Maler ) was active in Bologna from about 1503; by 1530 he was a property owner of considerable
substance and had built up an almost industrial scale workshop employing mostly German craftsmen
(see Pasqual and Ragazzi, B1998). The inventory compiled at his death in 1552 lists about 1100
finished lutes and more than 1300 soundboards ready for use; his firm continued trading until 1613.
Among several other lute makers in Bologna were Unverdorben [Unferdorfer], Marx (briefly) and Frei,
Hans . The main characteristic of their lutes is a long narrow body of nine or 11 broad ribs with rather
straight shoulders and fairly round at the base. This form is remarkably close to that proposed by
Bouterse (D1979) in his interpretation of Persian and Arabic manuscripts of the 14th century. The chief
difference is that these Middle Eastern descriptions, like Arnaut's, indicate a semicircular cross-
section, whereas the instruments of Maler and Frei are somewhat ‘more square’. Often made from
sycamore or ash, they remained highly prized as long as the lute was in use, but became increasingly
rare as time went on. No unaltered example is known to have survived, for their prestige was such that
they were adapted (sometimes more than once) to keep abreast of new fashions. They have all been
fitted with replacement necks to carry more strings; sometimes the vaulted back is the only original
part remaining (see Downing, B1978).

In Venice, as in Bologna, the German colony kept to its own quarter and had its own church. By 1521
Ulrich Tieffenbrucker is recorded as present in the city, and for the next hundred years the
Tieffenbrucker family, especially Magno (i), Magno (ii) and Moisé, as well as Marx Unverdorben and
Luca Maler's brother, Sigismond, dominated lute making in the city (see Toffolo, B1987). The name
Tieffenbrucker was taken from their original village of Tieffenbruck, but their instruments are usually
signed Dieffopruchar and regional spellings abound with variants such as Duiffoprugcar and even
Dubrocard. Another branch of the Tieffenbrucker family settled in Padua, including ‘Wendelio Venere’,
who has recently been discovered to be Wendelin Tieffenbrucker, probably the son of Leonardo
Tieffenbrucker the elder. Michael Hartung also worked in Padua and may have been taught by
Wendelin, although Baron (C 1727) stated that he was apprenticed to Leonardo the younger. The
typical body shape of these Venetian and Paduan lutes was less elongated than that of Maler's and
Frei's instruments, and the shoulders were more curved ( fig.10a, c–f ). The first examples had 11 or 13
ribs, but later the number was increased, a feature associated with, but not exclusive to, the use of

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yew, which has a brown heartwood and a narrow white sapwood. For purposes of decoration, each rib
was cut half light, half dark, which restricted the available width and required a large number of ribs,
sometimes totalling 51 and even more. The yew wood was supplied from the old heartland of lute
making in south Germany, and cutting the ribs for Venetian makers became a valuable source of winter
employment there (see Layer, B1978).

The use of geometrical methods of lute design has already been mentioned, and it has been found by
several writers that the shape of these instruments can be readily reproduced by such means (see
Edwards, D1973; D. Abbott and E. Segerman: ‘The Geometric Description and Analysis of Instrument
Shapes’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.2, 1976, p.7; Söhne, D1980; Samson, D1981; and Coates, D1985). This
may account for the similarity in basic form between instruments of different sizes and by different
makers. By comparison with the modern guitar, these early lutes, whether of the Bolognese or Paduan
type, are distinguished by the lightness of their construction. The egg-like shape of the lute body is
inherently strong and does not need to be built of very thick materials. Although the total tension of up
to 24 gut strings (for later lutes) can be as much as 70–80 kg, the well-barred thin soundboard
withstands this pull remarkably well. Though in the 17th century, as Constantijn Huygens's
correspondence makes clear, it was routine to re-bar old lutes as part of their renovation, this may
have had more to do with alterations in barring layout than structural weaknesses.

The instruction to tune the top string as high as it will stand without breaking is given in many early
lute tutors (though not by Dowland or Mace). If the highest string is lowered for safety's sake much
beneath its breaking point, the basses will be either too thick and stiff or, if thinner, too slack to
produce an acceptable sound. Wire-wound bass strings which could ease this dilemma by increasing
the weight without increasing the stiffness are not known to have been available until after 1650, and
were apparently not much used thereafter either. Therefore, as the breaking pitch of a string depends
on its length but not on its thickness, the working level of a given instrument is fixed within quite
narrow limits.

In the second half of the 16th century there was a tendency to build instruments in families of sizes
(and thus pitches), roughly corresponding with the different types of human voice. The lute was no
exception. Examples of the variety of sizes available around 1600 are shown in fig.10. The instrument
by Magno Tieffenbrucker (fig.10a) has a string length of 67 cm; the string lengths of the instruments
shown as fig.10c–g are 29·9 cm, 44 cm, 44·2 cm, 66·6 cm, and 93·8 cm. Strictly speaking, the smallest
of these (fig.10c) should be called a Mandore ( see also Mandolin, §1 ). In England the nominal a′ or g′
lute was known as the ‘mean’, and was the size intended in most of the books of ayres, unless
otherwise specified. The only other names used in English musical sources are ‘bass’ (nominally at d′)
and ‘treble’, which is specified for the Morley and Rosseter Consort Lessons. The pitch of these ‘treble’
lutes implied by the other parts was also g′ but it is possible that this music was intended to be played
at a pitch level a 4th higher than that of the mean lute (see Harwood, B1981). This nomenclature of
‘treble’ has caused some interest and, taken together with a number of specifically English pictures of
small-bodied long-necked lutes, may indicate a particular English variant (see Forrester, B1994).

It should be noted that although all sorts of sizes were available at most times, the general trend from
1600 to 1750 was towards larger instruments for common use. Thus, for example, we might expect
Dowland's songs to be accompanied on a lute of about 58 cm string length tuned to a nominal g′ or a′,
whereas most French Baroque music of the mid-17th century calls for an 11-course lute of about 67 cm
with a top string at a nominal f′, while the lutes used in Germany in the 18th century were mostly 13-

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course instruments of about 70–73 cm, also with a nominal top string of f′. Some of this may represent
a drop in the pitch standard, but we must also assume that string makers had managed to improve
their products to increase the total range available, since these size changes represent considerable
changes in the instruments' requirements. Apart from the development of overwound strings, this
increase in range could only have been achieved by increasing the tensile strength of the trebles, by
making the thick basses more elastic and flexible or by increasing the density of bass strings, perhaps
by the addition of metallic compounds (see Peruffo, D1991). There is currently much interest in trying
to reproduce these conjectured developments. It is noticeable from written accounts that the cost of
strings was remarkably high compared to that of the lutes themselves, leading to the thought that
there was more to their manufacture than is now apparent.

Although seven-course lutes appear as early as the late 15th century, and Bakfark's apprentice, Hans
Timme, wanted to buy an Italian seven-course lute as early as 1556 (see Gombosi, F1935), it was only
in the 1580s that they became at all common with the seventh course pitched at either a tone or a 4th
below the sixth (see §5 below). Improved strings are conjectured to have popularized this greater
range, perhaps providing a better tone and enabling John Dowland, in his contribution to his son
Robert's Varietie of Lute Lessons (1610), to recommend a unison sixth course:

Secondly, set on your Bases, in that place which you call the sixt string, or γ ut, these Bases
must be both of one bignes, yet it hath beene a generall custome (although not so much used
any where as here in England) to set a small and a great string together, but amongst
learned Musitians that custome is left, as irregular to the rules of Musicke.

The same book, reflecting the growing tendency to increase the number of bass strings, included
English and continental music for lutes with six, seven, eight and nine courses. This only occasionally
extended the range to low C; mostly the extra strings were used to eliminate awkward fingerings
resulting from having to stop the seventh course. These ‘diapasons’ were usually strung with octaves.
Already by the early 1600s the ten-course lute had made its appearance, shown in contemporary
illustrations as constructed like its predecessors, with the strings running over a single nut to the
pegbox, which has to be considerably longer to accommodate the additional pegs. The pegbox is also
usually shown as being at a much shallower angle to the neck than the earlier Renaissance lute, a fact
borne out by the surviving original ten-course lute by Christofolo Cocho in the Carl Claudius collection,
Musikhistorisk Museum, Copenhagen (no.96a). Often the paintings of ten-course lutes show a treble
‘rider’, a small extra pegholder on top of the normal pegbox side, designed to give a less acute angle
on the nut for the fragile top string.

Another innovation reported by Dowland in Varietie was the lengthening of the neck of the instrument:

for my selfe was borne but thirty yeeres after Hans Gerles booke was printed, and all the
Lutes which I can remember used eight frets … some few yeeres after, by the French Nation,
the neckes of the Lutes were lengthned, and thereby increased two frets more, so as all those
Lutes, which are most received and disired, are of tenne frets.

Initially this may have been done to improve the tone of the low basses, but unless stronger treble
strings became available at the same time, the pitch level of these longer lutes must have been lower
than the older eight-fret instruments. Interestingly, one such lengthened neck survived until quite

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recently, but when it was ‘restored’ this important source of evidence for the practice was removed.
Sometimes extra wooden frets were glued on to the soundboard, an invention which Dowland
attributed to the English player Mathias Mason.

It is interesting that Dowland should thus report the prevailing fashion in lutes as coming from France,
for by his death in 1626 France was the dominant culture musically and was the centre for
developments in different tunings, starting some time around 1620, which led to the 11-course lute.
Lowe (B1986) has suggested that the 11th course may at first have been only an octave string. The
later surviving 11-course lutes mostly appear to be conversions of ten-course instruments, all done in
the same way, by making the second course single and adding a treble rider for the top string or
‘chanterelle’ on the top of the normal pegbox treble side. This effectively gave two extra pegs which
were used for the new bass course, but, because the neck was now too narrow, these strings were
taken over an extended nut which projected beyond the fingerboard and were fastened to the pegs on
the outside of the pegbox. The famous portrait of Charles Mouton clearly shows that this was obviously
not regarded as a stopgap measure. This final extra course on the same string-length has often been
attributed to the invention of wire-wound or overspun strings, first advertised in England by Playford
in 1664. However there is distressingly little hard evidence that these were in fact much used and they
are not mentioned by either Mace or the Burwell tutor even though both wrote about the choice of
strings. As Lowe (B1976) has shown, during the 17th century the French were already buying and
converting early 16th-century Bologna lutes, seemingly because of a new aesthetic which valued the
antique. There are so few surviving lutes with any claim to have been made in France that it is not
possible to be sure what their makers were producing by way of new lutes at a time when lute playing
was so important to French musical life. One must assume that the French cannot all have been
playing on antique instruments. Indeed the inventory of the French maker Jean Desmoulins (d 1648)
points to a vigorous rate of production since it lists 249 lutes in various stages of construction as well
as 14 theorbos both large and small (see Lay, F1996). Only one lute by this maker has survived (Cité de
la Musique, Marseilles).

Makers working in Italy, where the old tuning held sway, had already addressed the problem of
extending the bass range in the 1590s by the expedient of having longer and therefore naturally
deeper-sounding strings carried on a separate pegbox. The theorbo, chitarrone, liuto attiorbato and
archlute all had extended straight-sided pegboxes carved from a solid piece of wood set into the neck
housing at a very shallow angle and carrying at their ends a separate small pegbox for these extended
bass strings. The form of all these instruments is very similar, differing mainly in the length of the
extended pegbox, the number of courses carried and whether the bass courses were double or single.
It was therefore only to be expected that this principle of longer, and therefore unfingered, bass strings
should also be applied to non-continuo lutes. From about 1595 to 1630 various other types of extended
pegboxes were tried for the bass strings. In one version, an extra piece of neck was added on the bass
side which carried its own small bent-back pegbox. One of these (by Sixtus Rauwolf, 1599, though the
extension may be later) has survived in the Carl Claudius collection, Musikhistorisk Museum,
Copenhagen and there are several paintings showing this form, including works by Carlo Saraceni (c
1579–1620) and Jan Miense Molenaer (c 1610–1668).

More widely adopted was a double-headed lute with curved pegboxes one set backwards at an angle
rather like the normal lute, the other extended in the same plane as the fingerboard. This carried four
separate small nuts to take the bass courses in steps of increasing length. This form usually had 12
courses and was apparently invented by Jacques Gautier in about 1630 (see Spencer, B1976, and

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Samson, B1977) but was not used much by the French who remained largely loyal to their single-
headed lutes. As the author of the Burwell Lute Tutor (c 1670) wrote: ‘All England hath accepted that
Augmentation and ffraunce att first but soone after that alteration hath beene condemned by all the
french Masters who are returned to theire old fashion keeping onely the small Eleaventh’. He, or she,
objected to the length of the longer bass strings and felt that they rang on too much, thereby causing
discords in moving bass lines. It was, however, widely used in England and the Netherlands until at
least the end of the 17th century. The apparent thinking behind this form was a desire to avoid the
sudden leaps in tone quality between the treble and bass strings which characterize the theorbo and
archlute forms. An important tutor for this type of lute was Thomas Mace's Musick's Monument (1676),
in which it was classed as a French lute; Talbot (c 1695), however, called it the ‘English two headed
lute’. For Talbot the ‘French lute’ had 11 courses, with all the strings on a single head. There has been
some discussion as to the size of these instruments (see Segerman, D1998). Talbot measured the string
length of a 12-course instrument of this type as 59·7 cm; iconographical sources show all sizes. To
date, six examples of this type have been found with fingered string lengths of between 50 and 75 cm.

This same principle of stepped nuts for bass strings of gradually increasing length lay behind a
specifically English form of the theorbo, which is also described in Mace and was measured by Talbot
(see Sayce, B1995; Van Edwards, B1995). Unusually for a theorbo this had double-strung courses in
the bass which still further smoothed the transition across the range. None of these have survived. The
French too seem to have developed their own version of the theorbo principle in the 17th century with
a shorter extension than the Italian theorbo and possibly with single stringing ( see Theorbo ).

In Italy in the 17th century the drive towards extending the bass range of the lute was accommodated
somewhat more consistently by incorporating the theorbo design into smaller lutes for solo use. Thus
the liuto attiorbato came to be used in addition to normal lutes and theorbos, and later archlutes, for
accompanying singers and continuo work. Matteo Sellas was part of another large German family of
instrument makers still based in Italy, and produced very elaborate lutes and liuti attiorbati of ivory
and ebony at his workshop ‘alla Corona’ (at the sign of the crown) in Venice. His brother Giorgio made
equally decorative guitars and lutes ‘alla stella’. Working in Rome, beyond what might seem to be the
natural bounds of migration from Germany, were David Tecchler, Antonio Giauna and Cinthius
Rotundus, from each of whom has survived an archlute, attesting this instrument's importance in Rome
in the 17th and 18th centuries.

By the beginning of the 18th century, the centre of activity in lute music shifted from France to
Germany and Bohemia. The makers extended the range of the instrument still further, and by 1719
composers were writing for 13 courses. There were two types of 13-course lutes developed and it is
hard to say which was first, since both are possible conversions from pre-existing 11-course
instruments and so labels are not conclusive. Paintings of both types are surprisingly rare. In one
version a single pegbox was used like that of the 11-course lute, but, possibly starting as a conversion,
a small subsidiary pegbox or ‘bass rider’ with four pegs to take the extra two courses was added to the
bass side of the main pegbox This had the effect of giving between 5 and 7 cm extra length to these
two courses. Commonly these lutes were quite large by previous standards with 70 to 75 cm being the
usual string length. From what has been said so far about stringing this must imply a lower pitch for
the main strings. It is clear from the details of the tablature that Silvius Leopold Weiss composed
throughout his life for this version of the 13-course lute which was developed by the new generation of
German makers, working in Bohemia and Germany itself. Among the most important at this time were
Sebastian Schelle and his pupil Leopold Widhalm working in Nuremberg (see Martius, B1996), Martin

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Hoffmann and his son Johann Christian working in Leipzig, Joachim Tielke and his pupil J.H. Goldt
working in Hamburg (see G. Hellwig, B1980) and Thomas Edlinger of Augsburg and his son Thomas,
who moved to Prague and set up his workshop there. All these makers were violin makers as well,
reflecting the growing importance of this instrument at a time when the lute was becoming less in
demand.

These makers were also responsible for the other version of the 13-course lute with extended bass
strings, the German Baroque lute (see Spencer, B1976). This had an ornately curved double pegbox
carved out of a single piece of wood, usually ebonized sycamore. This type did not usually have a treble
rider, but did occasionally feature a small separate slot carved in the treble side of the main pegbox to
take the top string. Typically this kind of lute had eight courses on the fingerboard and five octaved
courses going to the upper pegbox, these five being normally between 25 and 30 cm longer than the
fingered strings. This design appears to be a modification of the pre-existing Angélique form. Some
apparently early 13-course lutes, such as the 1680 Tielke instrument, dating from long before the
earliest surviving 13-course music (c 1719), seem to be converted ‘angéliques’. Others, such as the Fux
conversion in 1696 of a Tieffenbrucker instrument and the 13-course lute of Martin Hoffmann dating
from the 1690s, raise more awkward questions of dating. An even more elaborate triple pegbox form of
this type was also developed and a few examples have survived, notably by Johannes Jauck, a lute and
violin maker working in Graz, and Martin Bruner (1724–1801) in Olomouc. These seem to have been
functionally the same as the double pegbox form, and they may have represented a further attempt to
obtain a smoother transition from the treble to bass courses.

Internally, the barring structure behind the bridge was altered by these makers. Beginning with an
increase in the number of small treble-side fan bars, the characteristic J-bar on the bass side of the
Renaissance soundboard was finally removed and various kinds of fan-barring were introduced right
across this area of the soundboard. These seem to have had the effect of increasing the bass response.
The main transverse bars were also made slightly smaller and more even in height, maybe with the
same intention. The body outline of these lutes is remarkably similar to that of the early 16th-century
lutes of Frei and Maler and this resemblance may well have been deliberate, for the old instruments
continued to be highly prized. It was about this time (1727) that the first systematic history of the lute
was written, by E.G. Baron. Referring to the lutes of Luca Maler, he wrote:

But it is a source of wonder that he already built them after the modern fashion, namely with
the body long in proportion, flat and broad-ribbed, and which, provided that no fraud has
been introduced, and they are original, are esteemed above all others. They are highly valued
because they are rare and have a splendid tone.

This echoes the value placed on Maler lutes in the Fugger inventory of nearly 200 years earlier, which
talks of ‘An old good lute by Laux Maler’ and ‘One old good lute by Sig[ismond] Maler’. Baron's
comment on the possibility of fraud is also interesting in this context, since there are several surviving
lutes with supposedly 16th-century Tieffenbrucker labels which are clearly the work of Thomas
Edlinger the younger working in Prague at about the time Baron was published. Thomas Mace too
wrote of Maler ‘but the Chief Name we most esteem, is Laux Maller, ever written with Text Letters:
Two of which Lutes I have seen (pittiful Old, Batter'd, Crack'd Things) valued at 100 l [£] a piece’.

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In the 18th century a much simpler form of German ‘lute’, the mandora, emerged with the same string
lengths and barring system as the Baroque lute but usually with only six or eight courses in a variety of
tunings. Apparently mainly used by amateurs, it also found a useful niche in orchestras in place of the
13-course Baroque lute as well as for continuo and bass lines in sacred music, especially large scale
works.

Throughout the lute's history the gut strings have been matched by movable gut frets tied around the
neck. The placing of these frets has always been a problem to both theoreticians and players, and
many attempts have been made to find a system that will give the nearest approach to true intonation
for as wide a range of intervals and in as many positions as possible. A number of writers, including
Gerle (C 1532), Bermudo (C 1555), the anonymous author of Discours non plus mélancholique (1557),
Vincenzo Galilei (Fronimo, 1568) and John Dowland, put forward various systems, many of which were
based on Pythagorean intervals. Late 16th-century theorists in Italy, as well as 17th-century writers
such as Praetorius and Mersenne, habitually assumed that the intonation of the lute (and other fretted
instruments) represented equal temperament, whereas, in contrast, keyboard instruments were tuned
to some form of mean-tone temperament ( see Temperaments ).

5. Tunings.
Lynda Sayce

The earliest tuning instructions for the Western lute date from the late 15th century and are mostly for
five-course lute. The best known is that of Johannes Tinctoris, whose De inventione et usu musicae (c
1481–3) gives a tuning of 4ths around a central 3rd. However, as both five- and six-course lutes are
mentioned, the position of the ‘central 3rd’ is unfortunately ambiguous. Both the Königstein
Liederbuch (c 1470–73) and an English manuscript dating from between 1493 and 1509 (GB-Ctc
0.2.13) give intervals of 4–3–4–4 from bass to treble. Ramis de Pareia (Musica practica, Bologna, 1482)
stated that the most common tuning was G–c–e–a–d′, but mentioned another drone tuning with the
lowest three strings tuned to A–d–a; the trebles were set in various (unspecified) ways. Antonio de
Nebrija (Vocabulario Español-Latino, Salamanca, c 1495) apparently gave an unlikely diminished 5th
between the two lowest courses, then 3–4–5, but the correct translation of his description is disputed.
The late 15th-century Pesaro manuscript (I-PESo 1144) includes tablature for a seven-course lute with
4
the tuning 4–4–4–3–4–4, as does a manuscript now in Bologna (I-Bu 596.HH.2 , which probably dates
from the same period. The latter gives the tuning E–A–d–g–b–e′–a′.

By around 1500 six courses had become standard; the earliest printed sources, including Spinacino
(1507), Dalza (1508) and Bossinensis (1509 and 1511) require a six-course lute, usually tuned 4–4–3–4–
4. Virdung (Musica getuscht; Basle, 1511) mentioned lutes of five, six and seven courses, the six-course
lute being the most common, and gave a tuning 4–4–3–4–4, with the sixth course tuned to a nominal A.
The fourth, fifth and sixth courses were tuned in octaves, the second and third courses in unisons, with
a single first course. Agricola advocated this pattern in the first edition of his Musica instrumentalis
deudsch (Wittenberg, 1529) but gave a tuning a tone lower, in nominal G. Occasionally the sixth course
was tuned down a tone, a variation called ‘Abzug’ by Virdung and ‘bordon descordato’ by Spinacino. In
the 1545 edition of Musica instrumentalis deudsch Agricola stated that a seven-course instrument, with
the seventh course tuned a tone below the sixth course, was preferable to this scordatura, which was
difficult to manage.

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This basic six-course tuning, with octaved lower courses, and an interval of two octaves between the
outer courses, remained the norm for most of the 16th century. Tablature sources with parallel staff
notation (from both the 16th and early 17th centuries) show that the most common nominal tunings
were either in A (A–d–g–b–e′–a′) or G (G–c–f–a–d′–g′), though lutes in other nominal pitches are
encountered. There is a considerable body of literature discussing whether or not these variable
pitches were intended to be interpreted literally. Practical considerations of instrument availability,
together with notational considerations such as the avoidance of leger lines in the staff notated part,
suggest that these apparent lute pitches were only nominal. Cue notes are often provided in the
tablature, to clarify the relationship of lute pitch to staff notation. The absolute pitch of the lute was
variable; contemporary tutors typically instruct the player to tune the top course as high as possible,
and set the other strings to that.

Surviving 16th-century tablatures for multiple lutes call for a total ‘consort’ of nominal d″, a′, g′, e′ and
d′, to accommodate all of the variations encountered in the duet and trio repertories, though Praetorius
(Syntagma musicum, ii, 1618, 2/1619/R) mentioned other sizes too. The intervals between courses
remained the same, irrespective of the size of the lute. A few lutenists explored other tunings, albeit
briefly; these included Hans Neusidler (1544) whose infamous Judentanz requires a drone tuning;
Barberiis (1549) printed pieces using the tunings 4–5–3–4–4, 5–4–2–4–4, and 4–4–3–5–4; Wolff Heckel
(1562) also used a drone tuning for a Judentanz and other pieces.

By the 1580s a seventh course, tuned either a tone or a 4th below the sixth course, was in regular use,
and eight-course lutes incorporating both of these options became common in the 1590s. By the early
1600s ten-course lutes were in use, with diatonically tuned basses descending stepwise from the sixth
course. Around the same period the octave tuning of at least the fourth and fifth courses was dropped
in favour of unisons, though the octaves were certainly retained on the lowest courses and perhaps on
the sixth course too. Otherwise the tuning of the six upper courses remained essentially unchanged,
and became known as vieil ton. There was a brief vogue for cordes avallées tunings in France, used by
Francisque (1600) and Besard (C 1603), which involved lowering the fourth, fifth and sixth courses to
give drone-like 4ths and 5ths. These tunings were used almost exclusively for rustic dance pieces.

In the early years of the 17th century two distinct traditions began to emerge. The Italians mostly
retained the old tuning, adding extra bass courses ( see Archlute ) though P.P. Melli and Bernardo
Gianoncelli experimented with variant tunings of the upper courses. Around 1620 French composers
began to experiment with several accords nouveaux, first on ten-course lutes, and later on 11- and 12-
course instruments. (With these new tunings, the interval between the first and sixth courses was
always narrower than the two octaves of vieil ton; they should not be confused with the cordes avallées
tunings, where this interval was always wider than two octaves.) This experimentation continued until
at least the 1670s, and music for over 20 different tunings survives, many of which were given
different names by different scribes or composers (see Schulze-Kurz, E1990). However, only a handful
were common and these included what is today considered to be the normal ‘Baroque’ D minor tuning.
This did not become standard until the second half of the 17th century; the tuning commonly known as
‘Flat French’ was equally popular until about the 1660s. The advantages of the new tunings were
increased resonance and ease of left-hand fingering, though only within a very limited range of keys.
The derivation of these tunings from vieil ton, and the subsequent emergence of the D minor tuning,
has been somewhat obfuscated by recent editorial methods which transcribe these tunings on the basis
of an instrument whose sixth course is tuned to G. The transition is much clearer (and transcriptions
emerge in less obscure keys) if the sixth course in vieil ton is considered to be A. Some of the more

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common tunings are shown in Table 1 . In all of the above tunings (including vieil ton on lutes with
more than eight courses) the basses were tuned diatonically downwards from the sixth course. The
lute had become essentially diatonic in its bass register, and the tuning of the lowest courses would be
adjusted for the key of the piece. (This was a major factor in the grouping of pieces by key, which led to
the baroque suite.)

Table 1

Table 1

The first print to use the new tunings was Pierre Ballard’s Tablature de luth de différents autheurs sur
l’accord ordinaire et extraordinaire (Paris, 1623; now lost). Slightly later collections survive, containing
fine music by Mesangeau, Chancy, Belleville, Robert Ballard (ii), Pierre Gautier (i) and others, in
various accords nouveaux. The tunings were widely used in England after the 1630s; publications by
Richard Mathew (1652) and Thomas Mace (C 1676) use ‘Flat French’ tuning; Mace provided a
translation chart to convert tablatures between ‘Flat French’ and ‘D minor’ tunings. By the 1670s the
11-course single-pegbox lute in D minor tuning had emerged as the preferred norm throughout much
of Europe, and remained so until the early years of the 18th century, when two further courses were
added, extending the lute’s range down to A′. The last printed sources to make significant use of
variant tunings are Esaias Reusner (ii) (1676) and Jakob Kremberg (1689).

6. Technique.
Diana Poulton, revised by Tim Crawford

Several writers of instruction books for the lute have remarked that many masters of the art were, as
Mace put it, ‘extreme Shie in revealing the Occult and Hidden Secrets of the Lute’. Bermudo had
lamented the same characteristic in teachers: ‘What a pity it is (and those who have Christian
understanding must weep for it) that the great secrets of music die in a moment with the person of the
musician, for lack of having communicated them to others’. The training of professional players was
almost certainly carried on through some system of apprenticeship, and this may well be one of the
reasons why comparatively few books give really informative instructions on all aspects of playing
technique. Nevertheless, details have been left by the more conscientious authors that are sufficiently
clear to establish the main characteristics of lute technique in each period.

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Although little was written about left-hand techniques, certain basic rules were mentioned from the
Capirola Lutebook (c 1517, US-Cn; ed. O. Gombosi, 1955; see also Marincola, F1983) onwards. The
lute must be held in such a way that no weight is taken by the left hand. The thumb should be placed
lightly on the underside of the neck, opposite the first and second fingers. The tips of the fingers
should always stay as close as possible to the strings so that each one is ready to take its position
without undue movement. Fingers must be kept in position on the strings until they are required to
stop another string, or until the harmony changes. Judenkünig went so far as to say they must never be
lifted until needed elsewhere.

In Capirola’s lutebook the player was advised to keep the fingers in readiness and not to avoid using
the little finger; the first finger could be laid across several strings to form a barré chord. Sometimes a
finger was placed on one string only of a course in order to create an extra voice (a device also
described by Valentin Bakfark and the vihuelist Miguel de Fuenllana); the right hand would then strike
through the whole course as usual.

It was, however, the German masters who first codified a system of fingering. Judenkünig gave a series
of diagrams of left-hand positions. In the first of these the hand spans the first three frets and the
fourth fret on the sixth course; the first finger is marked with the six characters of the first fret in
German tablature; the second finger is marked with the next series; the third finger takes the lower
three courses on the third fret; and the little finger takes the upper three courses as well as the fourth
fret on the sixth course. Each diagram shows the fingers rigidly aligned on the appropriate fret. A
small cross placed above a letter indicates that the finger must be held down and the following note
played with the next finger, whatever fret it may be on. Judenkünig did not describe the fingering of
chords, or cross-fingering where the counterpoint makes it necessary to depart from the prescribed
alignment. Neusidler (Ein newgeordnet künstlich Lautenbuch, 1536) indicated by means of dots the
fingering of a number of simple compositions. In general he followed the rules laid down by
Judenkünig, but he also showed how chords constantly demand the use of fingers on frets other than
those allotted to them in a strict diagrammatic scheme.

In England and France little attention was given to left-hand technique until the publication of Adrian
Le Roy’s tutor Instruction … de luth (?1557, lost, repr. 1567, also lost, Eng. trans., 1568, see §8(v)),
which described the barré chord as ‘couching’ the first finger ‘along overthwart the stoppe’. Robinson
(C 1603) described how to finger certain chord passages and also how to finger ascending and
descending melodic lines. He also added fingering marks to the first five compositions in his books.
Besard (C 1603) described in considerable detail the use of the barré, and half barré, and also gave
advice on how to choose the correct finger for holding notes, particularly in the bass. Later in the 17th
century more complete markings were given by Nicolas Vallet (Secretum musarum, 1615) and, for a
12-course French lute, Mace.

Until about the second half of the 15th century most representations of lute players (where the details
are visible) show the strings being struck with a quill or plectrum. The hand approaches the strings
from below the bridge and lies nearly parallel with them. The plectrum or quill is held either between
the thumb and first finger, or the first and second, or even the second and third. Gradually the fingers
replaced the plectrum. In pictures dating from about 1480 it is common to see players with the hand in
a slightly more transverse position For any composition involving chords the advantage of this change
is obvious. Tinctoris observed that players were becoming so skilful that they could play four voices
together on the lute perfectly.

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The earliest printed books gave little information about right-hand techniques. A dot placed under a
note signified that it was to be played upwards, and the absence of a dot downwards; all passages of
single notes were played accordingly. Later sources specified that the downward stroke was always
taken by the thumb on the accented beat, while the unaccented beat was taken upwards, usually with
the first finger. This type of fingering was to remain standard practice until about 1600. It was still
mentioned by Alessandro Piccinini (Intavolatura di liuto, et di chitarrone, 1623) and by Mersenne
(1636–7), and it survived for runs of single notes across the lute from bottom to top and for certain
other passages until 1660–70.

According to the instructions in the Capirola manuscript (the first to give any real insight into the
playing position of the right hand), the thumb was held under the second finger, that is, inside the
hand. Adrian Le Roy was the first to mention that the little finger is placed on the belly of the lute,
although many representations of players before 1568 show the hand with the little finger in this
position. Le Roy wrote: ‘the little finger serveth but to keep the hande from [firm] upon the bealie of
the Lute’. From then onwards it was frequently mentioned. Robinson, for example, said: ‘leane upon
the bellie of the Lute with your little finger onelie, & that neither to far from the Treble strings, neither
to neere’. Mace wrote: ‘The 2d. thing to be gain’d is, setting down your Little Finger upon the Belly, as
aforesaid, close under the Bridge, about the first, 2d, 3d, or 4th. Strings; for thereabout, is its constant
station. It steadies the Hand, and gives a Certainty to the Grasp’. From this time onwards, portraits of
performing lute players always show the little finger placed either on the soundboard, in front of or
behind the bridge, or on the bridge itself (as in fig.11 ).

During the Renaissance, chords were usually played with the thumb on the bass, playing downwards,
and the first and second, or the first, second and third fingers, playing upwards. For chords of more
than four notes the following procedure was given by Le Roy and Besard: for five-note chords the
thumb plays the bass downwards, the third and fourth courses are raked upwards by the first finger,
and the first and second courses are played respectively by the third and second fingers; six-note
chords are played in a similar way with the thumb playing downwards across both the sixth and fifth
courses. The upper note of two-part chords was generally taken by the second finger, although
Robinson preferred the third.

A single dot under a chord of two or three notes generally means that it is played upwards with the
usual fingers, but without the thumb. Gerle, however, used a dot under a chord to show that all the
notes were to be played upwards with the first finger, while Judenkünig said that in dance music full
chords may be stroked or strummed with the thumb throughout. Neusidler also mentioned the ‘thumb-
stroke’. Robinson, however, advocated the third finger for notes farthest from the thumb, the second
for the next note, and the first for those nearest. Besard was the first writer to describe a new position
for the thumb; his directions are translated as follows in Dowland’s book of 1610:

stretch out your Thombe with all the force you can, especially if thy Thombe be short, so that
the other fingers may be carryed in the manner of a fist, and let the Thombe be held higher
than them, this in the beginning will be hard. Yet they which have a short Thombe may
imitate those which strike the strings with the Thombe under the other fingers, which though
it be nothing so elegant, yet to them it will be more easie.

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Dowland himself is said to have changed to the ‘thumb-out’ position in mid-career (Beier, B1979),
presumably to take advantage of the consequent greater stretch, perhaps in connection with the
addition of extra courses. The increase in the number of courses was probably also responsible for a
general shift in the position and movement of the hand. Besard suggested:

the first two fingers may be used in Diminutions very well insteed of the Thombe and the
fore-finger, if they be placed with some Bases, so that the middle finger be in place of the
Thombe, which Thombe whilst it is occupied in striking at least the Bases, both the hands
will be graced and that unmanly motion of the Arme (which many cannot well avoide) shall
be shunned. But if with the said Diminutions there be not set Bases which are to be stopped,
I will not counsell you to use the two first fingers, but rather the Thombe and the fore-finger:
neither will I wish you to use the two fore-fingers if you be to proceede (that is to runne) into
the fourth, fift or sixt string with Diminutions set also with some parts.

Markings comprising a pair of dots or small strokes under the note to indicate the use of the second
finger occur in many manuscripts from the early 17th century (e.g. Vallet used the latter marking). A
single vertical line or stroke under a note was an indication to use the thumb, to which greater
attention was paid with the increasing number of bass strings. Piccinini described an apoyando stroke:

The thumb, on which I do not approve of a very long nail, must be employed in this manner,
that every time you sound a string you must direct it [the thumb] towards the soundboard, so
that it is crushed onto the string below, and it must be kept there until it has to be used
again.

This type of stroke was mentioned by other writers and appears to have become standard practice
during the Baroque period. In fact, such a technique is almost essential when the thumb has to make
rapid jumps among a number of diapasons. If the thumb is held free, there is no point of reference
from which each movement can be judged accurately.

In the second decade of the 17th century many new technical devices began to appear. Bataille’s Airs
de différents autheurs (iv, 1613) used a dot for a quasi-rasgueado device in repeated chords ( ex.1 ) that
is described by Mersenne and became extremely common, especially in pieces in sarabande rhythm:
the dot at the top of the chord stands for an upward stroke with the first finger, while the dot at the
bottom stands for a downward stroke with the back of the same finger (ex.1a). For this device,
sometimes called tirer et rabattre, later composers often distinguished the second, downward-struck
chord by dots next to the notes (ex.1b).

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Ex.1

Italy was apparently the first country in which the slur was developed as part of normal technique
instead of being confined to the execution of graces. Pietro Paoli Melli (Intavolatura di liuto attiorbato
libro secondo, 1614) described the action of the left hand, and placed a ligature under pairs of notes to
be slurred, a marking which was always used to indicate the slur. There seems to be no evidence that
the slur was used in France, England or Germany at this early date, but Mersenne described it in 1636.

Piccinini introduced some individualistic traits into his playing: although the use of the nails was
deprecated by nearly all other writers, Piccinini said that they should be ‘a little long, in front of the
flesh, but not much, and oval in shape’. He played the rapid ‘groppo that is made at the cadence’ with
the first finger alone, striking upwards and downwards with the tip of the nail. (This is similar to the
vihuela’s ‘dedillo’, which was usually played with short nails.) He also advocated a change of tone
colour by moving the right hand nearer or farther from the bridge. In France an increasing number of
different right-hand strokes were used. Mersenne gave the traditional fingerings both for chords and
single-note passages, and some new strokes which had evidently become popular by then. He
described several ways of playing chords, and a system of marking by which each method could be
distinguished. Some chords were played downwards with the thumb: others with all the notes played
by the thumb except the top one which was played by the first finger; others with the thumb playing
the single bass note while the first finger raked the rest of the notes upwards. Unfortunately these
detailed notations seem not to have been adopted in other surviving printed and manuscript sources.
Nevertheless many of these devices became part of the French Baroque style. In volumes such as
Denis Gaultier’s Pièces de luth (1666), Denis and Ennemond Gaultier’s Livre de tablature des pièces de
luth (c 1672) and Jacques Gallot’s Pièces de luth (1681), markings are given for arpeggiating or
‘breaking’ chords. Some writers described the ‘slipping’ of the first finger across two notes on adjacent
strings to realize a short mordent, usually at a cadence; this characteristic device, which was used well
into the 18th century, was shown by three different markings (ex.2).

Ex.2

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Many of these techniques were carefully described in English lute books such as the Mary Burwell
Lute Tutor (c 1660–72, GB-Lam) and in Mace’s Musick’s Monument. The techniques were passed on to
the German school; a similar variety of strokes is described by Baron who also mentioned a change of
right-hand position for tone colour. As in other countries, German sources vary greatly in the extent to
which technique marks and left-hand fingerings were added to the tablature, often reflecting the level
of attainment of the person for whom they were written.

The development of playing technique was thus closely related to the continual process of extending
the resources of the instrument. Moreover, each technique produces particular qualities suited to its
own time, and the modern lutenist must know this in order to do justice to the music. Most ‘technical’
indications, such as vibrato or staccato (see §7 below), or the spreading of chords (indicated by oblique
lines separating the notes of a chord; see §8(iii)), come under the general heading of ‘graces’ (Fr.
agréments; Ger. Manieren), which term adumbrates most aspects of performance as well as
ornamentation in treatises, including playing loudly and softly or with rhetorical intent.

7. Ornamentation.
Diana Poulton, revised by Tim Crawford

The use of what in modern terms would be called trills, mordents, appoggiaturas and vibrato has
evidently always been an integral part of the performance of lute music. The fact that in the
Renaissance period ornament signs are frequently not included in printed books or manuscripts and
are written about comparatively rarely in early tutors may be due to several causes; probably the most
important was that there was a living tradition that was considered unnecessary to mention or notate.
Another reason may have been that cited by Mersenne, namely that printers lacked the requisite signs
in their equipment. These ornaments never acquired a standardized nomenclature or system of signs,
although some degree of conformity developed towards the end of the Baroque period.

In the Capirola Lutebook (c 1517, US-Cn), the earliest known source of information, two signs are
used: one shows figures notated with red dots; the other consists of two red dots placed over the
figure. Of the first sign it is said only that the finger on the lower fret is held firm and another finger is
used to ‘tremolize’ on or from the fret above. The second sign is said to indicate that the note is
‘tremolized’ with a single finger; it probably represents a mordent.

More precise information was given by Pietro Paolo Borrono in the second printing (Milan, 1548) of the
Intavolatura di lauto which gives appoggiaturas with both notes carefully indicated by sign. Only the
appoggiatura from above is mentioned in the directions, which also say that it is to be played on the
beat.

Rudolf Wyssenbach printed a transcription in German tablature (Zürich, 1550) of part of the contents
of the Francesco-Borrono book of 1546; half circles are said to indicate mordanten, but no further
explanation is given. The word mordanten appears to have been used in German as a general term for
ornaments including the appoggiatura rather than as a specific term for any one type of ornament. It
occurs in Martin Agricola’s Musica instrumentalis deudsch (1529) and was still used by Matthäus
Waissel in his Lautenbuch darinn von der Tabulatur und Application der Lauten (1592). Waissel’s
remark that the fingers are put ‘a little later on the letters and moved up and down two or three times’
indicates (in agreement with Borrono) that the ornament came on or after the beat and not before.

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No information appears to have survived concerning ornamentation of French lute music before
Besard, who made the following remark:

You should have some rules for the sweet relishes and shakes if they could be expressed
here, as they are on the LUTE: but seeing they cannot by speech or writing be expressed,
thou wert best to imitate some cunning player.

Vallet used two signs: a comma, signifying a fall from above the main note (upper appoggiatura), and a
single cross, signifying the same thing repeated several times, i.e. a trill. In his Regia pietas (1620)
Vallet described what is in effect a vibrato, indicated by a double cross.

Mersenne gave the most complete exposition of the art of ornamentation of the period. Excluding
minor variants (such as whether a tone or semitone is involved), seven ornaments may be tallied: the
tremblement (trill); the accent plaintif (appoggiatura from below, equal in duration to half the value of
the main note); the martelement or soupir (mordent); the verre cassé (vibrato, which Mersenne said
was not much used in his time, although it was very popular in the past; in his opinion, however, it
would be as bad a fault to omit it altogether as to use it to excess); the battement (long trill, more
suitable to the violin, he said, than to the lute); a combination (for which no name is given) of
appoggiatura from below with trill from above; and a mordent ending with verre cassé. He gave a sign
to indicate each of the seven types, but remarked that in French music the small comma was generally
used to ‘express all sorts’.

In Italy, Kapsperger (Libro primo d’intavolatura di chitarrone, 1604) placed two dots above many notes
to indicate the trillo, and also added a sign (an oblique stroke with a dot on either side) below certain
chords to show that they were to be arpeggiated. Melli marked the notes on which a ‘tremolo’ should
be performed, but gave no explanation of the meaning of the word, though he described a method of
performing an appoggiatura from below by sliding the auxiliary to the main note with a single finger.
This is indicated by a ligature above the two notes and appears to be unique in this period. Piccinini,
however, gave detailed descriptions of the trill, the mordent and the vibrato, which he called the first,
second and third tremolo, but he did not include signs for them in the tablature.

Early English manuscript sources show no ornament signs, but all the books copied by Matthew
Holmes (c 1580–1610, GB-Cu) contain them, although their placing is often curious. At least 17 other
manuscripts also have signs, and William Barley’s A Newe Booke of Tabliture (1596) includes the
double cross, but with no explanation of its meaning. The only English book of this period containing
information on the subject is Robinson’s The Schoole of Musicke (1603). He gave no signs nor any
indication of where the graces should be placed, but he described three that could be used: the relish
(perhaps an appoggiatura from above, or a trill); the fall (an appoggiatura from below); and a fall with
a relish (possibly the same as Mersenne's combination of lower appoggiatura and upper trill). Robinson
said of the relish:

The longer the time of a single stroke … the more need it hath of a relish, for a relish will
help, both to grace it, and also it helps to continue the sound of the note his full time: but in a
quicke time a little touch or jerke will serve, and that only with the most strongest finger.

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The variety of graces in use around 1625 is indicated in Table 2 , taken from the Margaret Board
Lutebook (GB-Lam, f.32). Generally, however, the lack of standardization in signs and the absence of
any indication of their meaning as used by different scribes poses a formidable problem in
interpretation, and it is possible here only to offer some suggestions based on a study of their context
in all the available material.

Table 3 shows the signs most generally found in English manuscript sources. Sign (a) is often the only
sign in a manuscript, and, like the French comma, can be taken ‘to express all sorts’. If it appears in
company with other signs it seems to signify an ornament from above the main note, perhaps an
appoggiatura or trill. Sign (b) indicates an appoggiatura from below, a mordent, or a slide (the
ornament that comes up to the main note from a minor or major 3rd below). Sign (c) appears in the
Sampson Lutebook (GB-Lam); its possible interpretation as a slide on a major 3rd is discussed below.
Sign (d) indicates an appoggiatura from below, in the Sampson Lutebook; this is suggested by the fact
that the sign appears before a note which is followed by (a), presumably indicating Robinson’s ‘fall
US-
with a relish’. Sign (e) is used similarly (Ws 1610.1). Signs (f) and (g) (the latter from GB-Lbl Add.
38539) indicate a mordent, appoggiatura from below or a slide. Sign (h) occurs in a limited number of
pieces in GB-Lbl Add.38539, always on a note immediately preceded by the note above, and often in
fairly fast runs. This may be the ‘little touch or jerke’ mentioned by Robinson, or possibly an inverted
mordent. Although the latter was clearly described in Spain from the time of Tomás de Santa María (in
Arte de tañer fantasía assi para tecla como para vihuela, 1565) to Pablo Nassare (Escuela musica,
1724), in Italy by Girolamo Diruta (Il transilvano, 1593) and in Germany by Praetorius (Syntagma
musicum, iii, 2/1619), there is no mention of it in any English source. It would, however, fit into the
passages in which the sign is used. Signs (i), (j) and (k) indicate a fall with a relish. In compositions in
John Dowland’s hand, (c), which appears on both open and stopped notes, presumably indicates an
upper appoggiatura or trill; (f), which appears on stopped notes only, may indicate an appoggiatura
from below; and (b), which appears on open notes only, may indicate a trill. However, these
interpretations are open to question owing to a marked lack of consistency in the application of
gracing, and in its notation. Many sources have few, if any, grace marks, and in the final analysis
musical intuition has to be the arbiter. (The interpretation of ornament signs in English lute music is
further addressed, with somewhat differing results, in studies by Buetens and Shepherd.)

Table 2

Table 3

Fashion in ornamentation may have varied from country to country; English players of the first two
decades of the 17th century perhaps graced their music to a greater extent than those in any other
part of Europe. A Fantasie by Dowland (GB-Lbl Add. 38539, f.14v; ex.3 ), with nine ornaments in the
space of five bars, shows an extreme of English practice.

No exact line of demarcation can be drawn between Renaissance and Baroque ornamentation. Most
graces used in the earlier period continued in favour, but a few more elaborate combinations appeared.
From Mersenne’s time onwards, some French manuscripts have a large variety of signs: the comma, ‘’
and ‘’ for martelements, something like an ordinary mordent sign placed under a note, and, to indicate
the appoggiatura from below, a bow-like sign placed beneath the tablature letter, very like Mace’s sign
for a slur. Double shakes or appoggiaturas began to appear. The étouffement (Mace’s ‘tut’) is also
mentioned in some sources, and the sign ‘’ is used. Mace’s Musick’s Monument, in many ways the most

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thorough study of the French lute, includes (pp.101ff) a list of ornaments, which are summarized in
Table 4 . He also wrote of loud and soft play and the use of the pause (indicated by a small fermata
sign) as additional graces to be observed.

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Table 4

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TABLE 4

Ex.3

In Denis Gaultier’s Pièces de luth (1666) less elaboration is found. The two ornaments given are
indicated by the comma and the slur and are equivalent to Mace’s back-fall and fore-fall. In Livre de
tablature des pièces de luth by Denis and Ennemond Gaultier (c 1672) the explanation of the comma
shows that the number of falls should be increased according to the length of the note. According to
Mary Burwell’s teacher, however, Denis Gaultier ‘would have no shake at all’. Undoubtedly personal
taste played a part in ornamentation as in all other aspects of performance. Three ornament signs are
listed by Gallot: tremblement, or trill, indicated by a small comma after the tablature letter;
martelement, or mordent, indicated by ‘’; choutte, or tombé, an appoggiatura from below, indicated by
an inverted ‘’ before the letter. The rhythmical breaking of chords, a universal feature of the French
lute style (see §8(iii) below, esp. ex.3 ), was explicitly indicated by oblique lines between chord
members. The existence of another explicit notation, a vertical line connecting non-adjacent tablature
letters, to indicate that the notes are to be struck together, suggests that a certain degree of spreading
was in fact normal.

German Baroque lutenists at first consciously maintained the tradition of the Parisian luthistes, using
many of the French ornament signs, which they classed under the general heading of Manieren
(equivalent to agréments or ‘graces’) along with other technical or performance indications. The
Breslau lutenist, Esaias Reusner (ii), who was coached by an unknown French lutenist in Paris in the
1650s, used a cross, a comma and a ‘fermata’ sign (Delitiae testudinis, 1667 and Neue Lauten-Früchte,
1676) but did not explain their meaning. The context suggests that the comma indicates a trill and the
cross a mordent, while the fermata probably represents a pause, as it does for his English
contemporary, Mace. Reusner indicated the appoggiatura from below by a bow under the letter. Le
Sage de Richée (Cabinet der Lauten) gave, together with other information about performing practice,
three ornaments: the trill indicated by a comma; the appoggiatura from above, which he called Abzug;
and the appoggiatura from below (Fall). Both appoggiaturas are written out with a bow under the pairs
of letters (the explanations are somewhat ambiguous). Radolt (Vienna, 1701) provided an exhaustive
list of Manieren citing François Dufaut’s example. Hinterleithner (Vienna, 1699) explained that the
Abzug (which he called Abriss) divides the ornamented note’s duration equally. Trills are only played on

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dotted notes; on shorter notes they are abbreviated to an Abriss. Radolt stressed that the trill always
begins on the upper note. Baron (Nuremberg, 1727) used the same signs as Radolt for the
appoggiatura from above (Abziehen) and for the trill (performed from the upper note, and gradually
increasing in speed), but in addition described two forms of vibrato (Bebung): one (on the higher
strings) performed with the thumb released from the back of the neck, the other with the thumb held
firm. He indicated them with a double and slanted cross respectively. Baron added that the ornaments
he mentioned were not the only ones that could be used, as many more could be added with the use of
skill and taste: ‘Every player must judge for himself what sort of affect he wishes to express with this
or that ornament’. He also stressed the difference between solo performance, where a player could use
more ornamentation and rubato, and ensemble playing, where each player’s performing method had to
be known in advance and accommodated for the sake of good ensemble. For faster music, Baron
remarked that ‘the best Manier is nothing more than neatness and clarity, and if someone wanted to
make many other additions it would be as ridiculous as chasing rabbits with snails and crabs’.

Silvius Leopold Weiss’s notational practice was remarkably consistent in his numerous autograph
manuscripts. As was common in the period, he tended to use more ornamentation in slow movements,
and the ornamental notes are seamlessly integrated into the music, occasionally (especially the Einfall)
being written out explicitly in the tablature, often using separate strings for the ornamental and main
notes, rather than being indicated by signs. This ‘two-string appoggiatura’ ( ex.4 ) had been in use
since the days of the Parisian luthistes, but unlike them Weiss frequently used it in an unambiguously
melodic context. He used the normal comma sign for an Abzug or Triller, sometimes extended by
repetition, and the bow under a letter for an appoggiatura from below; sometimes, especially at a
cadence, this sign extends backwards towards the previous note, even across a barline, looking
somewhat like a legato slur ( ex.5 ). The mordent is marked by a single cross and Bebung (vibrato,
rarely used by Weiss) by a short wavy line above and to the right of the letter.

Ex.4

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Ex.5

There is no surviving treatise or table of ornaments by Weiss although he was much in demand as a
teacher. Whereas he was following earlier practice in not using signs to distinguish the Abzug and
Triller, nor the short and long forms of mordent and trill, later players, whose extensive repertory of
signs was possibly influenced by the practice of their keyboard-playing contemporaries, became more
explicit in their notation. A manuscript from Bayreuth (c 1750, D-Ngm M274) contains two tables of
‘Zeichen der Lauten Manieren’ (‘signs for lute graces’) attributable to Weiss’s one-time pupil, Adam
Falckenhagen. The signs therein correspond with Falckenhagen’s printed works and with the tablature
version of J.S. Bach’s Lute Suite in G minor BWV995, which was probably intabulated by Falckenhagen.
Signs which seem to be introduced in these tables for the first time include one for ‘gebrochener
Bass’ (‘broken bass’; the fundamental and octave strings of a bass course being rhythmically
separated), a sign for staccato or damped (‘gestossen’) chords, and a sign for the full turn (with a
written-out realization equivalent to C.P.E. Bach’s geschnellte Doppelschlag). A closely related table
was printed by J.C. Beyer with his lute arrangements of Herrn Prof. Gellerts Oden und Lieder (1760).
The principal ornament signs used or explained by Le Sage de Richée, Hinterleithner, Radolt, Baron,
Weiss, Falckenhagen and Beyer are summarized in Table 5.

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Table 5

TABLE 5

From the early years of the 16th century until the end of the 18th, the use of graces was an integral
part of performing practice on the lute as it was on the harpsichord. Because of its lack of sustaining
power (compared with bowed instruments) these devices were essential, especially in slower music.
Finally the necessity promoted the fashion and composers expected graces to be added, whether or not
they were actually indicated, since they were an essential feature of lute style.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the art of ornamentation received careful attention in numerous
treatises on singing and on playing various instruments, and also in composers’ prefaces to their
works: this valuable information is often applicable to the lute as well as to the particular subject
under consideration ( see Ornaments ).

8. Repertory.
Diana Poulton, revised by Tim Crawford

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From the 1270s, when Jehan de Meung in Le roman de la rose mentioned ‘quitarres e leüz’, the
presence of the lute in western Europe is evident in literary sources, court records and inventories.
The Duke of Orléans is said to have had in his service in 1396 ‘un joueur de vièle et de luc’ called Henri
de Ganière. The names of a few players from other parts of Europe have also survived, such as a
certain Obrecht in Basle in 1363, and the brothers Drayer, minstrels at Mechelen from 1371 to 1374.
During the 14th century, representations of the lute in drawings, paintings and sculpture became
common, often in combination with other instruments, sometimes accompanying one or more voices.

Extant 15th-century records mention sums of money paid to lute players in service at the French court.
In 1491 for example, Antoine Her, a lute player of the chamber royal, received a monthly stipend of 10
livres and 10 sols. The great esteem in which virtuosos were held is evident in the case of Pietrobono,
who served the Este family at the court of Ferrara from about 1440 until his death in 1497. Other
courts competed for his services; he was widely travelled, became a rich man and was celebrated by
poets and writers of the time (including Tinctoris). Surviving documents imply that he accompanied
himself in singing and that he was associated with another player who was listed as a ‘tenorista’ –
possibly another lute player or a viol player who, in either case, would have supplied a ‘tenor’ against
which Pietrobono would have improvised. He seems to exemplify an age in which Italian lute players
were passing from a style that had been mainly improvisatory to one in which, as Tinctoris suggested,
a full training in the technique of contrapuntal writing or playing was essential.

This development was associated with the change from playing the lute with a plectrum to using the
right-hand fingers. Whereas previously the lute had been a melodic instrument, it could now be used
for polyphony. This in turn soon led to the invention of special forms of notation to overcome the
particular problems involved in transmitting the music to the written or printed page. Examples of
German, French and Italian tablatures from the end of the 15th century have come to light, but these
fragments reveal little about the early repertory. In addition, there are in the Segovia Cathedral
manuscript some instrumental duos with elaborate divisions by Tinctoris, Agricola and others that well
suit the lute and clearly reflect the improvisational demands on players of the time; one of these in
particular, a setting of Hayne van Ghizeghem’s De tous biens plaine, ascribed to Roellrin, also appears
PL-
in a German manuscript (Wu Mf.20161) and is unlikely to have been playable on any other
contemporary instrument. Some of the compositions in the earliest printed sources show a similar
style.

A common thread that runs throughout the history of lute playing is the improvisatory skill of the great
performers. For this reason, most of the repertory was probably never written down. Lute playing was
passed on by individual tuition, and many lute manuscripts were compiled by teachers for their pupils,
and supplemented (sometimes somewhat inexpertly) from memory by the pupils. These circumstances,
combined with the irrecoverable loss of a great many sources, account for the fact that much lute
music in manuscript carries no composer’s name, and, as much in the Baroque period as in the
Renaissance, there is frequently divergence between versions of the same piece in different sources,
especially in matters concerning performance. For a fuller discussion of lute sources, with illustrations,
see Sources of lute music .

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(i) Italy.
The earliest surviving significant Italian lute source is a heart-shaped manuscript (I-PESo 1144)
partially copied in the last decades of the 15th century and possibly of Venetian origin. Unusually, it is
notated in a rudimentary form of French lute tablature (the rhythm-signs and sporadic barring being
apparently based on the position of the tactus rather than on note durations) using letter-ciphers
rather than numbers. This early layer of the manuscript, which includes one piece for seven-course
lute, contains a few song arrangements (including the ubiquitous De tous biens plaine), a number of
ricercares in improvisational style, and a single bassadanza, a setting of the well-known basse danse
tenor La Spagna. From the first decade of the 16th century the Venetian printing press of Petrucci
distributed music by the early lutenist-composers of the Italian school, whose influence was felt
throughout Europe for the entire 16th century. Although Marco Dall’Aquila obtained a Venetian
privilege to print lute music in 1505, no such publications by him have survived. Petrucci published six
volumes of lute tablature between 1507 and 1511. The first two books, entitled Intabulatura de lauto
(1507), contain works by Spinacino, mainly for solo lute but there are also a few duets. There are 25
pieces called ‘recercare’ but most of the pieces are intabulations of Flemish chansons (from the 1490s)
originally for voices. The Intabulatura de lauto, libro tertio (1508), devoted to music by Gian Maria
Hebreo, is now lost; the Libro quarto by Dalza (1508) contains dances and a few intabulations of
frottolas by contemporary Italians such as Tromboncino. These books include rudimentary instructions
for tablature reading and right-hand technique. Songs for solo voice and lute appeared in the Tenori e
contrabassi intabulati col sopran in canto figurato per cantar e sonar col lauto (Libro primo, 1509;
Libro secundo, 1511), in which the lutenist Franciscus Bossinensis intabulated the lower parts of
frottolas whose vocal originals had already been printed by Petrucci. The first book contains 70 such
compositions, the second 56; each contains 20 or more ricercares as well. The six Petrucci volumes
form a substantial collection of first-rate music in what must have been a well-established tradition of
lute writing. The types of composition they contain evidently reflect the unwritten procedures of late
15th-century lute playing. The ‘first phase’ of Italian printed books for lute included one more
collection of frottolas with voice part and tablature, by Tromboncino and Marchetto Cara. The sole
extant copy is undated, but it certainly appeared in the 1520s.

Among the earliest examples of Italian lute music are two pieces in a Bologna manuscript (after 1484,
I-Bu 596). The first page gives an explanation of the tablature headed ‘La mano ala viola’. There has
been some discussion about the meaning of ‘viola’ in this instance but, since the discovery of
Francesco Canova da Milano’s Intavolatura de viola o vero lauto (Naples, 1536/R), it is clear that it
refers to the flat-backed, waisted instrument which closely resembles the Spanish vihuela and which
was considered suitable for playing lute music. The form of tablature used in this case is the rare
‘Intavolatura alla Napolitana’ in which the second volume of Francesco’s book is printed and which is
explained in Michele Carrara’s Regola ferma e vera (Rome, 1585). In appearance it resembles Italian
tablature but it is the reverse way up, with the figures for the lowest course lying on the bottom line of
the staff. The figure 1 is used throughout for the open course.

Few contemporary manuscripts survive, but two are of special importance, both of Venetian
provenance. The earlier (F-Pn Rés.Vmd 27) dates from the first decade of the 16th century, and, like
the earlier Pesaro manuscript, the tablature for the most part omits bar-lines and rhythm-signs. It
comprises two sections, the first of which contains 25 ricercares, dances and frottolas for solo lute; a
ricercare and the bassadanza on La Spagna are also found in the Pesaro manuscript. The second

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section contains lute accompaniments to 89 frottolas without the vocal melody. The other manuscript,
the Capirola Lutebook (c 1517, US-Cn), beautifully written and adorned with drawings by a pupil
expressly to ensure its preservation, includes instructions for playing and the use of ornamentation
(see §7 above). The composer, Vincenzo Capirola (b 1474; d after 1548), was clearly the outstanding
figure of the earliest period of written lute music.

The acknowledged leader of the following generation, and one of the most famous lutenists of any age,
was Francesco Canova da Milano. He was already famous for his remarkable skill at improvisation (his
contemporaries often referred to him as ‘Il divino’) when his first works were published: Intabolatura
di liuto (Venice, 1536), and the above-mentioned Intavolatura de viola o vero lauto. Some 120 to 150 of
his compositions are known today; many continued to appear in print until late in the century and also
appeared in manuscript collections in several countries besides Italy. Francesco’s lute music consists
chiefly of pieces entitled ricercare or fantasia. He expanded the scope of the quasi-improvisatory
ricercare of the older generation of composers, often making greater use of sequence, imitation and
repetition, and sometimes writing in the strictly contrapuntal style that became characteristic of the
ricercare during and after the latter part of the 16th century. There are also many intabulations of
chansons and other vocal works, most of which were published after Francesco’s death. (For a modern
edition of Francesco’s lute works see The Lute Music of Francesco Canova da Milano (1497–1543), ed.
A.J. Ness, HPM, iii–iv, 1970.)

From 1536 onwards, publishers, clearly exploiting a growing level of demand from dilettante players,
frequently issued lute music in books devoted to more than one composer’s music. Five distinguished
lutenist-composers are represented in the Intabolatura de leuto di diversi autori published by
Castiglione (Milan, 1536); as well as fantasias by Francesco himself, there are several of comparable
quality by Marco Dall’Aquila, Giovanni Giacopo Albuzio and Alberto da Ripa, as well as dances by
Pietro Paulo Borrono.

Marco Dall’Aquila is the most important figure immediately preceding Francesco. A number of his
works were printed, but most, including several which may originate from a lost print, are collected in
a Munich manuscript (D-Mbs 266). The challenge of marrying a strictly imitative compositional style
to the technical resources of the lute was also taken up by Alberto da Ripa (works ed. J.-M. Vaccaro,
CM, Corpus des luthistes français, 1972–5), whose fantasias, often of considerable length, further add
a telling use of expressive dissonance. Borrono seems to have specialized in dance music, although he
also composed fantasias. His excellent dances are usually arranged into suite-like groupings of three or
more pieces, sometimes with a concluding toccata.

Borrono published several collections of his own works and those of Francesco from 1546 onwards. In
that year a large number of publications appeared containing works by minor composers such as Giulio
Abondante, Melchiore de Barberiis, Giovanni Maria da Crema, Marc’Antonio Pifaro, Antonio Rotta and
Francesco Vindella. Alongside idiomatic dances, fantasias and ricercares appears an almost equal
number of arrangements or ‘intabulations’ of ensemble music, usually originally written for voices but
occasionally of instrumental music by Julio Segni and others. Often these are hard to distinguish from
original lute compositions, and recent research has begun to reveal that extracts of previously
composed works were sometimes incorporated without acknowledgement into lute ricercares by many
lutenists of the period, including Francesco himself.

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Among the great number of Italian composers for the lute working in the second half of the 16th
century, none reached the stature of Francesco Canova da Milano, although Giacomo Gorzanis (from
1561 to 1579), Giulio Cesare Barbetta and Simone Molinaro (1599) published some excellent works. All
the current types of composition are represented in their works: ricercares and fantasias in the
contrapuntal style developed by Francesco; intabulations of vocal originals; settings of dances,
including the various popular grounds such as the passamezzo antico, the passamezzo moderno and
the romanesca, as well as other famous tunes of the time. Much of this music was for solo lute, but a
collection of dances for three lutes by Giovanni Pacoloni, long thought to have been lost, survives in an
edition printed by Pierre Phalèse (i) in Leuven in 1564. In 1559 some of Francesco Canova da Milano’s
ricercares were published by the Flemish composer Ioanne Matelart as Recercate concertate, that is,
with a second lute-part or contrapunto, ingeniously converting the original solos into duets. Until the
middle of the 16th century, lute music was generally within the prevailing modal ideas of the time,
although some composers occasionally departed from strict modal structure. In 1567, however,
Gorzanis produced a remarkable manuscript of 24 passamezzos, each with its accompanying saltarello,
in major and minor modes on all the degrees of the chromatic scale, rising in succession.

True chromatic writing for the lute was rare, although by the end of the century it was beginning to be
exploited, notably in works by the Genoese maestro di cappella, Simone Molinaro. The few surviving
fantasias by the important Neapolitan composer and lutenist Fabrizio Dentice show a great command
of the instrument and its contrapuntal possibilities; they are technically demanding, being consistently
written in four real parts.

Vicenzo Galilei was another important figure of the period, though he is less known today as a
composer than as a writer; his theoretical and practical studies are contained in books printed between
1568 and 1589, while further prints and manuscripts preserve a large body of his excellent lute music
(extracts ed. in IMi, iv, 1934). At this time Italian lutenists were in demand throughout Europe; Galilei’s
gifted younger son Michelangelo (1575–1631) worked as lutenist for the Polish and Bavarian courts (it
was said that his brother, the scientist Galileo, was an even finer player). Diomedes Cato and Lorenzini
were outstanding composers, each with a very personal style. Diomedes served the Polish court for
many years, while Lorenzini, said to have received a papal knighthood for his lute playing, was
unsuccessfully approached by Lassus as a recruit for the Kapelle of the Duke of Bavaria. His
technically demanding and expressive music was later collected and published by a pupil, the French
lutenist Besard, in his Thesaurus harmonicus (Cologne, 1603). Another distinguished lutenist who does
not seem to have left Italy, Giovanni Antonio Terzi, published two books of his own fine music (1593
and 1599) – fantasias, vocal intabulations and dances – mainly for solo lute but including music for two
and four lutes as well as lute parts to be played with other instruments. In Terzi’s second collection the
‘courante francese’ appears for the first time in Italy, presaging the changes in musical style and lute
technique that were to result in French dominance of the lute scene for most of the following century.

French influence in dance music becomes increasingly important in the few Italian lute collections of
the 17th century, although the expressive Italianate toccata style holds sway in freely composed
genres. Michelangelo Galilei (1620) composed suites each comprising an introductory toccata
effectively exploiting expressive dissonance followed by a sequence of dances in French style. This
quasi-improvisatory style was taken somewhat further in the collections for lute and chitarrone or
theorbo (1604, 1611 and 1640) by the lutenist and theorbist of German extraction, Giovanni Girolamo
Kapsperger, whose idiosyncratic works have been compared with those for keyboard by his Roman
colleague, Frescobaldi. A more reserved figure is Kapsperger’s Bolognese rival, Alessandro Piccinini,

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who was capable of fine works in a severely contrapuntal idiom as well as tuneful dances, virtuoso
variations and expressive toccatas, frequently using chromaticism to good effect. A number of pieces
by various members of the Garsi family of lutenists from Parma are found in a variety of manuscript
sources, suggesting that their music was especially popular among dilettante players such as the
owner of one such book (PL-Kj Mus Ms 41053), the Polish or White Russian nobleman K.S.R. Dusiacki
( see Garsi [Garsi da Parma], Santino ).

By the 1620s the lute in Italy was normally fitted with several extra bass courses. A full octave of open
basses on an extended neck was standard on the liuto attiorbato (the ‘theorboed lute’) as used in the
French-influenced works of Pietro Paolo Melli who, unusually, experimented with scordatura tunings.
This type of instrument, whose larger cousin, the arciliuto (archlute), was principally (although not
exclusively) used for accompaniment from around 1680, was also called for in the highly virtuoso music
of Bernardo Gianoncelli (1650), and again in the Corellian sonatas of Giovanni Zamboni (1718). Lute
tablature was by this time virtually obsolete in Italy, although the instrument was used throughout the
18th century. The last significant sources, Filippo Dalla Casa’s manuscripts of 1759 (I-Bc EE155; ed. O.
Cristoforetti, 1984), are written entirely in staff notation, a fact which raises the question as to whether
more Italian lute music may survive in this form as yet unrecognized.

(ii) Germany, Bohemia and Austria.

Although based in Italy, many of the important figures in the early history of the lute were in fact
German, notably the 15th-century blind organist, harpist and lutenist Conrad Paumann, who is said to
have invented the German lute tablature system. Outside Italy the first printed lute music appeared in
the Germanic states of the Holy Roman Empire. Virdung included instructions for the lute and one
piece as a pedagogical illustration. Schlick’s Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang und Liedlein (1512)
contains 14 songs for voice and lute and three solo pieces. Judenkünig’s Utilis et compendiaria
introductio (c 1515–19) and Ain schone kunstliche Underweisung (1523) both include instructions for
playing as well as music. The first contains solo lute intabulations of settings of Horace’s odes by
Petrus Tritonius published for voices in 1507, together with other similar pieces and dance music; the
second is a mixture of dances, lute versions of vocal originals, and five pieces called ‘Priamel’,
corresponding to the Italian ricercare. Gerle (1532) gave instructions and music for viol and rebec as
well as for lute; his book was reprinted in 1537, and in 1546 a revised and enlarged edition was
published. His 1533 book, Tabulatur auff die Laudten), comprises music for solo lute, including
intabulations and pieces entitled ‘Preambel’.

The publications of Hans Neusidler began with his book of 1536. He was the first writer of instruction
books to show real pedagogic talent; not only did he give clear instructions for both right and left
hands, but his pieces are carefully graduated, leading the beginner by gentle degrees through the
initial difficulties. Two modified tunings are found in his work: one, known as ‘Abzug’, consisted in
lowering the sixth course by a tone, and the other was used in his Judentanz. (The scordatura notation
of this piece has been misread by some scholars, who thereby mistook it for an early example of
polytonality.)

Collections of music in German tablature continued to be printed until 1592, some under the name of
the publisher, such as those of Rudolf Wyssenbach (1550) and Bernhard Jobin (1572), others by
composer, collector or arranger, such as Sebastian Ochsenkun (1558), Matthäus Waissel (1573, 1591,

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1592) and Wolff Heckel (including music for two lutes, 1556, 1562). A total of about 20 or 30 volumes
appear to have been printed. Most of these show considerable influence from Italian, French and even
Spanish music of the time.

The German system of lute tablature was in use not only in Germanic countries, but was also
widespread throughout central and Eastern Europe. Its earliest appearance (the Königstein
Liederbuch; see Sources of lute music, §3 ), however, records a few single-line melodies which may be
more suitable for a bowed instrument (identical tablature notation systems were often used for plucked
and bowed instruments until well into the 18th century). Although there have been a number of studies
of German lute tablature sources, the general lack of modern editions reflects the reluctance of
modern lutenists to play from German tablature, which is commonly perceived as more difficult to read
than the French or Italian systems. The relative importance of German lute sources has thus been
consistently undervalued in the modern revival.

Many of the surviving manuscripts have evident associations with a university milieu, and these
‘student’ lutebooks often incorporate an anthology of Latin verses (frequently amorous), classical
quotations and wise proverbs. Their musical content is sometimes less edifying, but they are valuable
as repositories of a very wide range of styles and types of music, from solo pieces (fantasies, preludes
etc.), complex intabulated vocal polyphony from the French, Italian and Flemish repertory as well as
German chorale settings and Gesellschaftslieder, through to otherwise unrecorded dance and ‘folk’
music, often explicitly labelled with a regional origin. Some of the dance music can be shown to have
its origins in polyphonic music and in the repertory of the Stadtpfeifer. An interesting characteristic is
the late survival in lute sources of otherwise obsolete genres such as the Tenorlied and the Hoftanz.
From the late 16th century onwards, formerly popular Hoftänze are often classed as ‘Polish dances’ in
German lute sources. In manuscript and printed sources, the non-German music included tends to be
predominantly Italian in the early 16th century, but by the end of the century a scattering of French,
Polish and other Slavic, Hungarian and other Eastern European, and, increasingly, English dances are
identified, many of which prove to be unique survivals.

After 1592, German publications for the lute used either Italian or French tablature, although German
tablature continued in manuscript sources until about 1620. Important printed collections were those
of Adrian Denss (Florilegium, 1594), Matthias Reymann (Noctes musicae, 1598) and Johann Rude
(Flores musicae, 1600); these are extensive collections of pieces from the international repertory, and
similar compilations continued to appear in the 17th century. The most important of these anthologies
was Besard’s Thesaurus harmonicus (Cologne, 1603), mentioned above in connection with Lorenzini,
Besard’s lute teacher in Rome, whose works occupy a central position in the volume. Others were
those of Georg Leopold Fuhrmann (Testudo gallo-germanica, Nuremberg, 1615), Elias Mertel (Hortus
musicalis, Strasbourg, 1615), and Johann Daniel Mylius (Thesaurus gratiarum, Frankfurt, 1622).

Probably as a consequence of the Thirty Years War (1618–48), little music for the lute was published in
German-speaking lands until much later in the century. A few manuscripts, and the evidence of
paintings and literary sources, suggest, however, that the instrument continued in regular use, in solos
and for accompanying the voice. Among the most important manuscripts is that compiled by Virginia
Renata von Gehema in Danzig (now Gdańsk) around the middle of the century (D-B Mus.ms.40624). In
common with most such collections, it consists mostly of music by French lutenists such as
Mesangeau, the Gaultiers, Dufaut and Pinel, or by their German imitators, leavened with German song
settings (and, in this particular case, by an unusual number of Polish dances). The French influence

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extended to the use of the accords nouveaux on lutes with ten to twelve courses. Esaias Reusner (ii),
who studied with a French lutenist, in his two published collections (1667 and 1676) mostly used the D
minor tuning that was rapidly becoming the standard, but also employed other tunings in a highly
idiomatic fashion. While Reusner’s debt to French models, especially Dufaut, is clear, his music is
characterized by an increasing tendency towards a cantabile melodic style and an expressive use of
dissonance. Philipp Franz Le Sage de Richée seems to have worked for Baron von Niedhardt in
Breslau, capital of the German-speaking province of Silesia, a region of much importance in the
subsequent history of lute music. In his Cabinet der Lauten (n.p., n.d.; the copy formerly in Riemann’s
possession bore the date 1695), he praised Gaultier, Dufaut, Mouton (his former teacher) and the
influential Bohemian aristocratic lutenist Count Jan Antonín Losy. His valuable lute-playing instructions
were frequently copied into manuscripts and his book was – most unusually – reprinted as late as 1735.
A more mysterious figure is Jacob Bittner who a decade earlier published a highly accomplished
collection of Pieces de lut (Nuremberg, 1682).

In the Hapsburg lands of Austria and Bohemia, French influence on lute music was, if anything, even
stronger, and it seems likely that several French players visited the region. Among the large number of
items of lute and guitar music assembled in the great library of the Lobkowitz family at Roudnice are
several that suggest close personal contact with Mouton, Gallot and others, including the guitarists
Derosiers and Corbetta. Local composers for the lute, like their German counterparts, tended to
imitate the French, while adding touches of Italianate melody, explicitly in the case of movements
labelled ‘Aria’, which may reveal the increasing influence of opera. By 1700 the lute was unmistakably
an ‘aristocratic’ instrument in Vienna, although T.B. Janovka (Clavis ad thesauram magnae artis
musicae, Prague, 1701/R, 2/1715/R as Clavis ad musicam) stated that lutes were so plentiful in Prague
that the houses could be roofed with them. The Viennese lutenists Ferdinand Ignaz Hinterleithner
(1699) and Baron Wenzel Ludwig von Radolt (1701) dedicated their published works to successive
music-loving emperors, although neither contains much music of any inspiration; they are both
collections of chamber music for lute with other instruments. Their younger contemporary J.G.
Weichenberger left no published collection, and much of his music is lost, but what remains shows
some fine qualities, especially in his extended improvisatory preludes.

Count Jan Antonín Losy von Losinthal, the ‘Prince among lutenists’ according to Le Sage de Richée,
left a significant number of works in manuscript in an idiomatic and appealingly mixed French/Italian
style. He is best known, however, as the posthumous dedicatee of a tombeau composed on his death
(1721) by the greatest lutenist of the following generation, Silvius Leopold Weiss (1686–1750), whose
influence was felt throughout the German-speaking world. Weiss’s long career embraced early
employment in his native city of Breslau, an extended stay in Italy (1708–14) and a lengthy period of
employment as one of the stars of the Dresden musical establishment (1717–50). A larger body of
music by him survives than by any other lutenist of any age (over 650 pieces) dating from all periods of
his life, although establishing a reliable chronology for Weiss’s works is extremely difficult. In his
multi-movement pieces, which he always called ‘sonatas’, he took the standard constituent dance forms
of the French suite, working them out into impressive structures, often, especially in the later music, of
great length. Some require a great deal of virtuosity in performance, but all remain highly idiomatic for
the lute. In slower movements, such as sarabandes and allemandes, Weiss used a three-part texture,
the inner voice contributing greatly to the expressive effect, while in faster music such as courantes,
gigues and other virtuoso finale movements, the texture becomes predominantly two-part. Many of his
sonatas are on an unprecedentedly large scale; they can take up to 30 minutes in performance. Most,

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however, do not survive with integral preludes; these are sometimes found added later to the
manuscripts, in a few cases by Weiss himself. This suggests that he supplied them as substitutes or
models for a movement that he expected an expert player to improvise. These highly expressive quasi-
improvised preludes and fantasies, often employing chromatic harmony, represent some of Weiss’s
most characteristic music. He also composed a good deal of music of a more contrapuntal nature in
fugal sections of overtures and fantasies as well as in a number of self-standing fugues.

Among the pieces of J.S. Bach believed to have been intended for the lute (or lute-harpsichord, and
thus in direct imitation of lute style) are some fugues (BWV997, 998) which extend the demands on the
player beyond the normal bounds of idiomatic technique. Bach, although usually restrained in the
simultaneous activity of the voices in these works, builds towards contrapuntal climaxes in four real
parts, whereas Weiss ingeniously gives the impression of more complexity than in fact is present.
Several of Bach’s lute works are adaptations of music originally for solo cello or violin which he made
himself or are the work of contemporary lutenists (e.g. BWV997 and 1000, tablature versions by J.C.
Weyrauch; BWV995, arranged by Bach, tablature version probably by Adam Falckenhagen), a
precedent which has been successfully followed by many of today’s players. Bach clearly admired the
instrument, writing expressive obbligato solo parts for the original versions of the St Matthew and St
John Passions and using a pair of lutes in the Trauerode. The suite for harpsichord and violin BWV1025,
for some time suspected as a spurious work, has been shown to be an arrangement of a lute sonata by
Weiss, and contemporary references testify to the two composers’ acquaintance and mutual respect.

Weiss was the pre-eminent leader among a flourishing community of both amateur and professional
lutenists in his time. Among the best-known were Wolff Jacob Lauffensteiner (1676–1754), Adam
Falckenhagen (1697–1754), and the Breslau-born players Ernst Gottlieb Baron (1696–1760), already
mentioned as an early historian of the lute, and Weiss’s pupil Johann Kropfgans (1708–c 1771).
Lauffensteiner’s music, and that from the early careers of Baron and Falckenhagen, is similar in style
to that of Weiss (which leads to some confusion in manuscript sources). By the 1740s, however, lute
composers began to prefer a simpler two-part texture, with increased treble–bass polarization. Later
lutenists, such as the expert keyboard player and student of J.S. Bach, Rudolf Straube (1717–c 1780)
and the Bayreuth violinist Joachim Bernhard Hagen (1720–87), were affected by the somewhat
different idioms of their principal instruments, and no trace of influence from the earlier French lute
tradition remains. All these players, including Weiss himself, composed chamber works for the lute
with other instruments, including concertos, although in the case of Straube and, most regrettably, of
Weiss himself, none survive in complete form. There was a continuing demand for lute music among
German amateurs, as is shown by the large quantity offered for sale in Leipzig; over 200 solo works, 23
lute duets, over 150 trios for lute, violin and bass, and 50 concertos for lute with string ensemble
feature in various Breitkopf catalogues between 1761 and 1771. A significant repertory of vocal music
arranged for the lute, sometimes fully texted, together with occasional written references to the
practice, suggests that the lute at least in some circles maintained its traditional role in domestic
situations as an accompaniment to the voice. The use of the larger and louder theorbo as a continuo
instrument in church and opera house continued as long as there were expert players; Weiss
performed in all the Hasse operas in Dresden until late in 1749, and Kropfgans took part in Hiller’s
operettas in Leipzig for another two decades after that. Carl Maria von Weber heard Weiss’s son,
Johann Adolf Faustinus Weiss, play the theorbo in the Dresden Hofkirche as late as 1811.

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Questions of authenticity surround the handful of early works by Haydn in contemporary versions for
lute with other instruments, in which the first violin part of a quartet, transposed down an octave and
furnished with a simplified bass line, is given to the lute. Some highly idiomatic music in a similar style
was composed by the Viennese lutenist Karl Kohaut (1726–82; like Haydn, a member of Baron van
Swieten’s circle), including ensemble divertimenti, some challenging concertos and a single surviving
solo sonata. Towards the end of the century Friedrich Wilhelm Rust composed a set of three sonatas
for lute and violin (dated 1791 on one manuscript, but probably composed some years earlier). The last
work for solo lute was a set of 12 variations by Christian Gottlieb Scheidler (d 1815) on a theme by
Mozart, inspired by the first performance of Don Giovanni in Prague in 1787.

(iii) France.
Although the Pesaro manuscript (see §8(i) above) was written in ‘French’ tablature, its repertory and
origin are exclusively Italian. The first printed French tablature, using a five-line staff, appeared in
Guillaume Vorstermann’s Livre plaisant et tres utile (Antwerp, 1529), a translation of Virdung’s book of
1511. Virdung’s musical example was replaced with the Flemish chanson Een vrolic wesen (in organ
tablature and staff notation as well as for lute). Also in 1529 Pierre Attaingnant at Paris printed his
Tres breve et familière introduction; his Dixhuit basses dances of 1530 contained some 66 lute pieces
(for a modern edition of some of Attaingnant’s music, see Preludes, Chansons and Dances for the Lute,
ed. D. Heartz, 1964).

Between 1551 and 1596 Adrian Le Roy printed books of music for guitar and cittern as well as for lute.
His surviving lutebooks extend from Premier livre de tablature de luth (1551) to Livre d’airs de cour
(1571) for voice and lute. His instructions for playing the lute survive in English translation, and give a
clear description of the technique used in France at the time.

Guillaume Morlaye was associated with the printer Michel Fezandat, also of Paris, who brought out not
only Morlaye’s own works (1552–8) but also those of the Italian, Alberto da Ripa (1552–62). Julien
Belin’s Premier livre (1556) was printed by Nicolas Du Chemin, and Giovanni Paolo Paladin’s (1560) at
Lyons by Simon Gorlier.

In the latter part of the 16th century French music publishing declined somewhat, and few lutebooks
were issued except for some reprints of earlier works. With the increase of diapason strings, the use of
a five-line tablature staff gave way to six lines, and around the end of the century further changes
began to appear. Somewhat earlier, the term ‘à cordes avallées’ had been used in one of Gorlier’s
guitar books to denote the lowering of certain strings. The application of this term to the lute in
Anthoine Francisque’s Le trésor d’Orphée (1600) signified a departure from the basic Renaissance
tuning and foreshadowed a period of transition in which many tuning systems were adopted, though
the old set of intervals continued in use for some time (see §5 above). The most notable collection of
this period was Besard’s Thesaurus harmonicus (1603); the same editor’s Novus partus (1617) includes
several pieces for an ensemble of lutes and instruments or voices as well as for solo lute. The ten-
course lute figured largely in the books of Robert Ballard (ii) (1611, 1614) and of Vallet (1615, 1619,
1620), who also included a set of pieces for a quartet of lutes. Other distinguished composers for the
lute in vieil ton include Julien Perrichon, Victor de Montbuisson, Mercure d’Orléans and Charles
Bocquet. Their excellent works include a number of preludes or other improvisational genres, although
dance music predominates.

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Together with the increase in the number of diapason strings and the new tunings a marked change of
style became apparent. Preludes, courantes, voltas and sarabandes became the favourite forms in the
first decades of the 17th century, while intabulations of polyphonic music and the contrapuntal fantasie
all but disappeared. The characteristic form of French lute song, the air de cour, sprang from the
elaborate court ballets, and flourished between 1571 and 1632.

The eight volumes of Airs de différents autheurs (1608–18), the first six of which were arranged by
Gabriel Bataille, include works by all the finest French songwriters of the time and show the influence
of musique mesurée à l’antique. Although the exact setting of long and short syllables was not always
strict, the verbal rhythms and poetic structure became of prime importance, and the restriction of the
bar-line almost entirely disappeared. Many songs of great beauty were written in this style, notably by
Pierre Guédron. (See also Chansons au luth et airs de cour français du XVIe siècle, ed. L. de La
Laurencie, A. Mairy and G. Thibault, 1934; and Airs de cour pour voix et luth (1603–1642), ed. A.
Verchaly, 1961.)

Early works by René Mesangeau and Ennemond Gaultier use the vieil ton, but both composers left a
larger body of music in the later tunings. Gaultier in particular favoured the D minor tuning which was
to become the norm by the mid-17th century. Three important anthologies under the title Tablature de
luth des différents autheurs sur les accords nouveaux were issued at Paris by Pierre Ballard (1623,
1631, 1638); unfortunately the earliest does not survive. These present informal ‘suites’ of dances
grouped by composer and tuning (strongly associated with key); although the numbers of each dance
vary, the order of the ‘core’ component movements – allemande, courante, sarabande – remains fixed.
Among the dances, which include sets of branles, there are a few song settings. Some of the
composers, including Belleville and Chancy, were fashionable dancing masters who were closely
associated with the ballet de cour; others, especially Mesangeau, Pierre Dubut le père and François
Dufaut, together with the eminent royal musician Germain Pinel, were prominent and influential
lutenists whose works make up a large proportion of the manuscript repertory preserved in France,
Britain and German-speaking countries during the rest of the century.

Coinciding with the emergence of the D minor tuning as the favourite accord nouveau, the 11-course
lute (see §3 above) became established as the norm, and seems to have ousted the 12-course
instrument in France by the middle of the century, although the latter retained its popularity in Britain,
Germany and the Netherlands for much longer. Players such as Dufaut and Dubut le père adapted to
the new tuning with great success, while a new generation of lutenists, among them Denis Gaultier,
Jacques Gallot and Charles Mouton produced a major body of expressive work in the classic style
précieux of the Paris salon. In the pursuit of rhetorical expression (a goal made explicit in the famous
and sumptuously decorated manuscript of Denis Gaultier’s music, La rhétorique des dieux, Paris, c
1652; ed. A. Tessier, PSFM, vi–vii, 1932/R) a variety of strokes and fairly extensive ornamentation were
expected, even more than those specifically indicated in the notation, and the use of notes inégales was
also left to the taste and discretion of the player. (For the solo lute music see Corpus des luthistes
français, a series produced by the CNRS, 1957–.)

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Ex.3

An integral characteristic of the music of the French Baroque school was a convention of performance,
reflected in the notation, that came to be known as style brisé; in many passages the notes of the treble
and bass (or other voices) were sounded one after another (the bass first) instead of simultaneously as
was the more general practice in polyphonic music. A related feature was the rhythmic breaking or
arpeggiation of chords that were often written plain. This could be indicated by oblique lines placed
between the component notes; often, however, such signs, like the explicit notation of notes inégales,
were omitted altogether. Perrine, in a passage addressed to harpsichordists as well as lutenists,
referred to the convention as ‘the special manner of playing all sorts of lute pieces’; ex.6 shows the
interpretation given in his Pieces de luth en musique (1680). It was this style in particular that exerted
a considerable influence on the writing of contemporary keyboard players and visitors such as the
young Froberger. These conventions in the performance of French lute music were clearly considered
characteristic of the genre by Germans adopting the French lute style. They are almost always more
explicitly notated in the many important German sources of 17th-century French lute music which
formed the basis of the German repertory well into the 18th century. Since, furthermore, these
manuscripts often preserve large numbers of works (for example, by Dufaut, Gallot and Mouton) not
found in French sources their importance is considerable.

(iv) The Netherlands, Spain and eastern Europe.

In Antwerp Guillaume Vorstermann, who had published the French translation of Virdung’s Musica
getutscht, brought out a Flemish translation, Dit is een zeer schoon boecxken … opt clavecordium luyte
ende fluyte (1554, 2/1568). Of greater scope were the activities of Pierre Phalèse (i), whose first
lutebook, Des chansons reduictz en tabulature de lut (Leuven, 1545), contained works by many
composers. Phalèse, something of a pirate among publishers, specialized in large anthologies of music
from all over Europe, collecting vocal as well as instrumental music of many kinds. The only surviving
edition of Giovanni Pacoloni’s book, with music for three lutes, was published by Phalèse at Leuven in
1564. He later moved his press to Antwerp, where he joined Jean Bellère. Emanuel Adriaenssen’s
books Pratum musicum, 1584, and Novum pratum musicum, 1592, with other editions up to 1600, were
printed by Pierre Phalèse (ii) at Antwerp, and contain work by other composers besides Adriaenssen
himself, in arrangements for one to four lutes with and without voices.

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Joachim van den Hove produced two large collections of works by internationally famous composers:
Florida (1601) and Delitiae musicae (1612). His own compositions and arrangements, which demand a
sure technique, also appear in them and in a number of manuscripts, two of which are autograph (the
Schele manuscript, D-Hs; and Hove, D-Bs). In 1626 Adriaen Valerius published an unusual collection
of music for voice, lute and cittern with or without other instruments called Neder-landtsche gedenck-
clanck. This was a thinly disguised book of patriotic songs directed against the occupying Spanish
forces, using many popular tunes, some of them English. The enormous Thysius manuscript ( see
Thysius [Thijs], Johan ) contains lute music in all the genres of the early 17th century, including much
English music, a large repertory of intabulated sacred and secular vocal music and a number of pieces
for an ensemble of lutes. As far as the rest of the 17th century is concerned, although copious
iconographical evidence suggests continuing popularity of the instrument in the Netherlands, there are
almost no surviving musical sources for the lute.

After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492 the history of the lute in Spain becomes obscure. It was
referred to by Bermudo as ‘vihuela de Flandes’, implying a degree of unfamiliarity. The only extant
books of tablature printed in Spain are for the vihuela, which, though tuned to the same intervals as
the lute, is a quite distinct instrument (for an account of its history and repertory see Vihuela ).
Nevertheless there is much evidence to suggest that the lute was more commonly used than has been
generally recognized.

The most famous 16th-century east European lutenist was Valentin Bakfark, born in Transylvania. He
wrote some fine fantasias in the Italian manner, and his great renown as a player took him to various
courts and the houses of nobles and magnates all over the Continent. His books testify to his
cosmopolitan reputation: Intabulatura liber primus (1553) was printed in Italian tablature in Lyons and
was partially reprinted as Premier livre de tabelature de luth (1564) in French tablature, by Le Roy &
Ballard in Paris. His Harmoniarum musicarum in usum testudinis factarum tomus primus (1565) was
printed in Kraków and reprinted in Antwerp (1569), both editions using Italian tablature. Wojciech
Długoraj, born in Poland about 1557, published no books of his own, but his works are found in several
collections. Jakub Reys (‘Polonois’) was also born in Poland, but went to France when quite young and
was appointed lutenist to Henri III; his works are mostly found in French anthologies.

(v) England.
Little is known about the use of the lute in England before the 14th century. Social development was
hardly ripe for the general spread of art music outside the church, the court and a few great houses.
Under the Tudors, however (following the Wars of the Roses which ended with the seizure of the
English throne by Henry VII), a wealthy middle class began to appear, and the few urban centres of
population grew at an unprecedented rate. From the time of Henry VIII onwards, manuscripts
containing lute tablature began to appear, though none extant dates from before 1540. Most of the
professional lutenists at Henry’s court were Flemish or Italian. The three royal children were taught to
play, and evidence suggests that in general some amateur performers were beginning to become quite
proficient.

The growth of the ‘leisured classes’ by about the middle of the 16th century led to a demand for
instructions for playing the lute, which was best satisfied by printed books. The register of the
Stationers’ Company records licences to John Alde for The Sceyence of Lutynge (1565) and to Robert

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Ballard (i) for An Exortation to All Kynde of Men How they shulde Learn to Play of the Lute (1567), but
neither of these is now extant. The first three surviving instruction books in English are all derived
from a single French source, Le Roy’s Tres breve et tres familière instruction, now lost. A Briefe and
easye Instru[c]tion (1568) ‘englished by J. Alford Londenor’ contains instructions in the form of rules
with music examples, followed by a collection of fantasias and dances. The rules, with certain minor
variants, are reprinted as the second part of A Briefe and Plaine Instruction (1574), which also teaches
‘to set all music of eight divers tunes in Tableture for the Lute’ (almost all the examples being chansons
by Lassus). The third part comprises a collection of music, quite different from that of 1568,
‘conteinynge diverse Psalmes, and manie fine excellente Tunes’; the latter are versions of French
chansons that Le Roy had set for voice and lute in his Livre d’airs de cour (1571). English Protestant
taste (the book is dedicated to Edward Seymore, Earl of Hertford) is catered for by the inclusion of
metrical psalm tunes.

Le Roy’s instructions were again translated, but without acknowledgment, by William Barley in A New
Booke of Tabliture (1596), which also contains sections for the orpharion and bandora. This work is the
first printed collection for lute by English composers, and includes, in the bandora section of the book,
the earliest English solo songs with tablature accompaniment. Robinson’s The Schoole of Musicke is a
thorough lute method, written in the form of a dialogue ‘between a Knight, having children to be
taught, and Timotheus, who should teach them’. The music that follows is all by Robinson himself, and
includes some pieces for two lutes as well as fantasias, dances and settings of popular tunes for solo
lute.

The last English instruction book for the Renaissance lute was Robert Dowland’s Varietie of Lute-
Lessons (1610), comprising a translation of the instructions from Besard’s Thesaurus harmonicus
(1603) and other observations on lute playing, by John Dowland. These are the only words on the
subject that John Dowland left, despite references to ‘my father’s greater work’ in Robert Dowland's
other publication of the same year, the songbook A Musicall Banquet. The Varietie contains a selection
of fantasias, pavans, galliards, almains, currants and voltes (by English and continental composers)
which must surely have been collected originally by John Dowland on his European travels.

These books, together with a considerably larger body of manuscript collections dating from about
1580 to about 1625, reveal music of the highest quality by composers such as John Johnson (i), Francis
Cutting, Richard Allison, Daniel Bacheler, Philip Rosseter, Robert Johnson (ii), Alfonso Ferrabosco (i)
(who spent most of his time in England between about 1562 and 1578), and above all John Dowland
whose international fame at this time was unique among lutenists.

Solo lute music circulated mainly in manuscript, but starting with Dowland’s First Booke of Songes
(1597) a series of songbooks for voice and lute was published in England – some 30 volumes averaging
about 20 songs apiece. The duration of this vogue was only 25 years (the last collection was John
Attey’s First Booke of Ayres of 1622) but it was responsible for some of the finest English songs of any
period. A few of the composers also wrote in the madrigal style, and a few also composed solo lute
music; but in general the writers of lute-songs in England kept almost entirely to that genre. Its appeal
lay in a direction other than that of madrigals or solo lute music, for it entailed a much more concise
setting of the text than the former, and had a less abstract emotional effect than the latter.

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Many books of ayres were arranged so that they could be performed either as solo songs with lute and
usually bass viol accompaniment, or as partsongs for four voices with lute. The favouring of a sustained
bass line to balance the melody in the voice reflects the tendency to think in terms of a polarization of
harmonic interest between those two parts. Many collections include lute parts as contrapuntal as the
texture of a madrigal, but eventually accompaniments showed a tendency towards simplification, with
less imitative part-writing and more straightforward chordal structure. Ultimately this led to the
‘continuo song’, where only the melody and bass were written down and the lutenist or theorbo player
was expected to fill out the harmonies according to certain conventions known as the ‘rule of the
octave’. The partsong alternative, started by Dowland in his First Booke and originally intended to
appeal to a public eagerly immersed in madrigal singing, lent a characteristic stamp to the English
ayre that makes it quite distinct from anything produced on the Continent. (For a modern edition of
some of Dowland’s music, see Collected Lute Music, ed. D. Poulton and B. Lam, London, 1974, 3/1984.)

Another English use of the lute was in the mixed consort of three melody instruments (treble viol, flute,
bass viol) and three plucked (lute, cittern, bandora), a grouping almost certainly conceived originally
as an accompaniment to a solo voice somewhat in the manner of the older songs with viols ( see
Consort, §2 ). The treble viol, flute and bass viol played in three-part harmony which, often incomplete
on its own, was filled in by the three plucked instruments. The cittern and bandora (both wire-strung)
formed the alto, tenor and deep bass, while the lute had a dual role. Much of the music was in dance
forms, with repeated sections, in the first of which the lute played chords; but in the repeats the lute
played elaborate and rapid ‘divisions’, giving a silvery, shimmering quality to the music. This technique
was known as ‘breaking the ground in division’; hence the expression ‘broken music’. The light texture
of the three melody instruments allowed the lute prominence, while the cittern and the deep bandora
provided fullness and body.

Printed collections of music for such a combination include the First Booke of Consort Lessons edited
by Morley in 1599 and reissued with additional pieces in 1611 (ed. S. Beck, 1959) and Philip Rosseter’s
1609 edition of Lessons for Consort. No complete set of partbooks has survived for any of the editions.
There are, however, two manuscript collections (the Matthew Holmes manuscripts in GB-Cu and the
Walsingham consort books in GB-BEV and US-OAm), both also incomplete but whose contents overlap
to some extent with those of the printed books. Part of William Leighton’s The Teares or Lamentacions
of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614) is devoted to ‘consort songs’ set for four voices with the same six
instruments.

With the development of the Jacobean and Caroline masque, larger groups of instruments began to
appear. In Ben Jonson’s Oberon (1611) ‘20 lutes for the Prince’s dance’ were required, and the
description of Love freed from Ignorance (1611) tells of the entrance of ‘12 Musitions that were
preestes that songe and played’ and ‘12 other lutes’. The theorbo, said to have been introduced into
England by Inigo Jones in 1605, soon found its way into favour in these entertainments. In James
Shirley’s masque, The Triumph of Peace (1634), as many as seven lutes and ten theorbos were used.

Soon after the death of John Dowland in 1626, however, the English school of lutenist-composers
declined. For some time the popularity of the lute had been overshadowed by that of the lyra viol,
which was now cultivated by those amateurs who were also avid players of ensemble music for viols.
With the coming of Charles I’s wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, and her entourage from France, a fashion

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grew up at court for all things French. The famous lutenist Jacques Gautier arrived from Paris with the
Duke of Buckingham in 1617, was appointed to the court in 1619 and soon became popular in London,
where he entered the literary circles of writers such as John Donne.

An interesting English manuscript spanning the change from the ‘old’ lute music of the Elizabethan
and Jacobean composers to that of the new French style was compiled by Lord Herbert of Cherbury. It
includes music by Dowland, Rosseter, Holborne and other such composers, along with that of Gautier
and some compositions of Cherbury himself, the latest dated 1640. Also represented in this manuscript
is Cuthbert Hely, who is otherwise virtually unknown. His music is of astonishing intensity: firmly
grounded in the earlier English tradition, it nonetheless explores previously untried harmonic territory.
Cherbury retained the ‘old’ tuning of the main six courses despite his interest in the new music and the
French lute, but the new tunings are in evidence in other manuscripts, such as the latter part of Jane
Pickering’s Lutebook where compositions by John Lawrence (dc 1635) and Gautier demonstrate the
‘Harpe way’, ‘flat way’ and ‘tuning Gautier’.

With a few exceptions, such as the solos and duos by William Lawes, of which only three pieces
survive, and the large quantity of (lost) lute music said to have been composed by John Jenkins, little
music of any great value was written for the lute by English composers up to the time of the Civil War;
but Lawes, using the theorbo as thoroughbass in his ‘Royal’ and ‘Harpe’ consorts, produced some of
the most distinguished instrumental music of his time. During the Commonwealth and at the
Restoration, trio sonatas continued to appear for viols or violins with the theorbo specified as a
suitable continuo. A set of 30 unnamed pieces for solo lute or theorbo by John Wilson (1595–1674) is of
outstanding interest. The pieces are in a distinctive improvisatory preludial style and systematically
cover all 24 major and minor keys, with tuning indications to match. Such a scheme was only possible
on the lute, whose tablature was unaffected by aspects such as enharmonic spellings and ‘double’
accidentals, which would have caused great problems in the staff notation of the time.

Meanwhile, the French lute and music by French composers began to enjoy considerable popularity,
although the contents of Richard Mathew’s The Lute’s Apology for Her Excellency (which he claimed
was the first printed book for the French lute to appear in England) fall well below the standard of
excellence maintained in such manuscript collections as the Hender Robarts Lutebook, the Mary
Burwell Lute Tutor (GB-Lam) and the Panmure Lutebook (GB-En). These collections, all compiled by,
or under the supervision of, lutenists from Paris, show that the works of the Gaultiers, Vincent, Pinel
and other distinguished French composers were familiar to English and Scottish players of the second
half of the 17th century. An early 18th-century repertory for the French lute in Scotland is found in the
Balcarres Lutebook, whose approximately 200 pieces consist of dance-tunes (often arranged from
fiddle versions) and intabulations of Scottish melodies and well-known English songs such as
‘Lillibulero’ and ‘The King Enjoys his Own Again’, as well as a few French lute pieces.

The last great figure in the history of the lute in England was Mace, whose Musick’s Monument
contains the most thorough extant set of instructions for the French lute, as well as some appealing
music. He discussed technique, ornamentation, playing style, stringing, tuning, care of the instrument
and many aspects of its history. The section on the theorbo is also valuable.

As a continuo instrument, particularly in accompanying the voice, the theorbo was important
throughout the 17th century and well into the first half of the 18th. The theorbo or theorbo-lute is
mentioned on the title-pages of many volumes ranging from Angelo Notari’s Prime musiche nuove

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(London, c 1613) through most of Playford’s songbooks to Purcell’s Orpheus Britannicus (1698–1702),
John Blow’s Amphion Anglicus (1700) and John Eccles’s Songs for One, Two and Three Voices (1704).
Walter Porter included both lutes and theorbos among the accompanying instruments of the consort in
his Madrigales and Ayres (1632).

The lute and theorbo were used by Handel in a number of his operas and other works, both as continuo
and as obbligato in certain arias, such as ‘The soft complaining flute’ in his Ode for St Cecilia’s Day
(1739). Players of the instrument were becoming rare, however, and Handel’s occasional use of it was
usually due to the presence of a visiting virtuoso player, such as Carlo Arrigoni (in London between
1731 and 1736), who played in the Concerto op.4 no.6, originally scored for ‘Lute, Harp and Lyrichord’.
According to Burney, the final appearance of the lute in an opera orchestra in England was in the aria
‘Due bell’aline’ in Handel’s Deidamia (1741).

Little more is heard of the lute in England in the 18th century, although the names of distinguished
foreign players are occasionally encountered in newspaper advertisements for concerts; S.L. Weiss
visited London and gave a short series of concerts in 1718. One player who settled in London was J.S.
Bach’s former pupil, Rudolf Straube, from whom Thomas Gainsborough bought a lute and requested
lessons in 1759. A manuscript partially compiled by Straube (GB-Lbl Add.31698) contains annotations
in a later hand suggesting that pieces from it were copied by a player of the ‘Theorboe Lute’ up to the
late date of 1813. However, the instrument mentioned on a few title pages dating from about 1800 as
the ‘lute’ was in actual fact the harp-lute, whose music shows no discernible relationship with the real
lute. (For other modern editions of English lute music see the series English Lute Songs, London,
1967–71, and Music for the Lute, ed. D. Lumsden, 1966–.)

Bibliography
A Ancient and non-European lutes. B Western lute, general. C Theoretical and pedagogical. D Construction. E Notation
and tunings. F Repertory.

A: Ancient and non-European lutes

C. Sachs and E.M. von Hornbostel : ‘Systematik der Musikinstrumente’, Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie, 46 (1914), 553–90 [Eng. trans. in GSJ, xiv (1961), 3–29; repr. in Ethnomusicology: an
Introduction, ed. H. Myers (London, 1992), 444–61]

F. Behn : ‘Die Laute im Altertum und frühen Mittelalter’, ZMw, 1 (1918–19), 89–107

K. Geiringer : ‘Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der europäischen Laute bis zum Beginn der
Neuzeit’, ZMw, 10 (1927–8), 560–603

L. Picken : ‘The Origin of the Short Lute’, GSJ, 8 (1955), 32–42

H. Hickmann : Ägypten, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, 2/1 (Leipzig, 1961)

W. Stauder : ‘Zur Frühgeschichte der Laute’, Festschrift Helmuth Osthoff zum 65. Geburtstag,
ed. L. Hoffmann-Erbrecht and H. Hucke (Tutzing, 1961), 15–25

G. Fleischhauer : Etrurien und Rom, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, 2/5 (Leipzig, 1964, 2/1978)

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R.A. Higgins and R.P. Winnington-Ingram : ‘Lute-Players in Greek Art’, Journal of Hellenic
Studies, 85 (1965), 62–71

H. Turnbull : ‘The Origin of the Long-Necked Lute’, GSJ, 25 (1972), 58–66

L. Manniche : Ancient Egyptian Musical Instruments (Munich, 1975)

S. Marcuse : A Survey of Musical Instruments (London, 1975), 406ff

L. Picken : Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey (London, 1975), 261ff, 583

C. Ziegler : Les instruments de musique égyptiens au musée du Louvre (Paris, 1979)

M. Maas and J. Snyder : Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece (New Haven, CT, 1989)

B: Western lute, general

LütgendorffGL

VannesE

M. Brenet : ‘Notes sur l'histoire du luth en France’, RMI, 5 (1898), 637–76; vi (1899), 1–44; pubd
separately (Turin, 1899/R)

O. Körte : Laute und Lautenmusik bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1901/R)

R. Donington : ‘VI: Plucked Strings: IB, 1: The Family of Lutes’, The Instruments of Music
(London, 1949, 3/1970)

A. Baines : ‘Fifteenth-Century Instruments in Tinctoris's De inventione et usu musicae ’, GSJ, 3

(1950), 19–26

B. Disertori : ‘Remarques sur l'évolution du luth en Italie au XVe siècle et au XVIe’, Le luth et sa
musique: Neuilly-sur-Seine 1957, 19–24

D. Gill : ‘The Elizabethan Lute’, GSJ, 12 (1959), 60–62

LSJ (1959–) [renamed The Lute in 1982]

G. Hayes : ‘Musical Instruments: Mandora and Lute’, Ars Nova and the Renaissance, 1300–1540,
NOHM, 3 (1960/R), 487–8

A.L. Lloyd : ‘The Rumanian Cobza’, LSJ, 2 (1960), 13–16

M. Morrow and M. Graubart : ‘Lutes and Theorboes: their Use as Continuo Instruments
described by Michael Praetorius in his Syntagma musicum ’, LSJ, 2 (1960), 26–32

M.W. Prynne : ‘James Talbot's Manuscript, IV: Plucked Strings – the Lute Family’, GSJ, 14 (1961),
52–68

M.W. Prynne : ‘Some Remarks on Lute Forgeries’, LSJ, 3 (1961), 17–21

M.W. Prynne : ‘The Fretted Instruments, I: the Lute’, Musical Instruments through the Ages, ed.
A. Baines (Harmondsworth, 1961/R, 2/1966/R)

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M.W. Prynne : ‘The Old Bologna Lute-Makers’, LSJ, 5 (1963), 18–31

H. Radke : ‘Wodurch unterscheiden sich Laute und Theorbe’, AcM, 37 (1965), 73–4

J. Jacquot and A. Souris, eds.: Thomas Mace: Musick's Monument, ii: Commentaire et
transcriptions (Paris, 1966)

R.G. Campbell : Zur Typologie der Schalenlanghalslaute (Strasbourg, 1968)

L. Cervelli : ‘Brevi noti sui liutai tedeschi attivi in Italia dal secolo XVIo al XVIIIo’, AnMc, no.5
(1968), 299–337

JLSA (1968–)

E. Pohlmann : Laute, Theorbe, Chitarrone: die Instrumente, ihre Musik und Literatur von 1500
bis zur Gegenwart (Bremen, 1968, enlarged 5/1982)

F. Hellwig : ‘Makers' Marks on Plucked Instruments of the 16th and 17th Centuries’, GSJ, 24
(1971), 22–32

B. Tonazzi : Liuto, vihuela, chitarra e strumenti similari nelle loro intavolatura: con cenni sulle
loro letterature (Milan, 1971, 2/1974)

H. Radke : ‘Theorbierte Laute (liuto attiorbato) und Erzlaute (arciliuto)’, Mf, 25 (1972), 481–4

F. Hellwig : ‘Zur Terminologie der europäischen Zupfinstrumente: das Vokabularium in den

Quellen zum historischen Lautenbau’, Festschrift für Ernst Emsheimer, ed. G. Hilleström
(Stockholm, 1974), 81–6

FoMRHI Quarterly (1975–)

I. Harwood and M. Prynne : A Brief History of the Lute (Richmond, 1975)

M. Saffle : ‘Lute and Related Instruments in Eight Important European and American
Collections’, JLSA, 8 (1975), 22–48; ix (1976), 43–61

D. Gill : Gut-Strung Plucked Instruments Contemporary with the Lute (Richmond, 1976)

M. Lowe : ‘The Historical Development of the Lute in the 17th Century’, GSJ, 29 (1976), 11–25

R. Spencer : ‘Chitarrone, Theorbo and Archlute’, EMc, 4 (1976), 407–23

D. Abbott and E. Segerman : ‘The Names, String-Lengths and Pitch-Standards of Extended-Neck

Lutes of the 17th Century’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.7 (1977), 26–32

H.M. Brown : ‘Trecento Angels and the Instruments they Play’, Modern Musical Scholarship:
Oxford 1977, 112–40

D. Poulton : ‘The Lute in Christian Spain’, LSJ, 19 (1977), 34–49

W.B. Samson : ‘The Twelve-Course “English Lute”’, LSJ, 19 (1977), 50–53

L. Wright : ‘The Medieval Gittern and Citole: a Case of Mistaken Identity’, GSJ, 30 (1977), 8–42

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R. Bletschacher : Die Lauten- und Geigenmacher des Füssener Landes (Hofheim am Taunus,
1978)

J. Downing : ‘The Maler and Frei Lutes: some Observations’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.11 (1978),
60–64

A. Layer : Die Allgäuer Lauten- und Geigenmacher (Augsburg, 1978)

D.B. Lyons : Lute, Vihuela, Guitar to 1800: a Bibliography (Detroit, 1978)

P. Päffgen : Laute und Lautenspiel in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1978)

D.A. Smith : ‘The Lutes in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich’, JLSA, 11 (1978), 36–44

P. Beier : ‘Right Hand Position in Renaissance Lute Technique’, JLSA, 12 (1979), 5–24

Gitarre & Laute (Kassel, 1979–)

J. Griffiths : ‘Lutes in the Museo Municipal de Música in Barcelona’, JLSA, 12 (1979), 48–66

F. Hellwig : ‘Die Lauteninstrumente im Germanischen Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg’, Gitarre &

Laute, 1/6 (1979), 6, 8–15

J. Klima : ‘The D minor Lute in Central Europe after the Second World War’, JLSA, 12 (1979), 73–
7

K. Ragossnig : Handbuch der Gitarre und Laute (Mainz, 1979)

K. Rottmann : ‘The Resurrection of the Lute in Twentieth Century Germany’, JLSA, 12 (1979),
67–72

D. and E. Segerman : ‘On Baroque Lute Stringing and Tunings’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.16
(1979), 26–33

P. Abondance : ‘L'apport de l'iconographie la connaissance du luth’, Le luth et sa musique II:

Tours 1980, 139–56

G. Hellwig : Joachim Tielke, eine Hamburger Lauten- und Violenmacher der Barockzeit
(Frankfurt, 1980)

H. Heyde and P. Liersch : ‘Studien zum sächsischen Musikinstrumentenbau des 16./17.

Jahrhunderts’, Jb Peters, 2 (1980), 231–59

H. Radke : ‘Zur Spieltechnik der deutschen Lautenisten des 16. Jahrhunderts’, AcM, 52 (1980),
134–47

D.A. Smith : ‘The Musical Instrument Inventory of Raymund Fugger’, GSJ, 33 (1980), 36–44

I. Harwood : ‘A Case of Double Standards? Instrumental Pitch in England c1600’, EMc, 9 (1981),
470–81

F. Hellwig : ‘The Morphology of Lutes with Extended Necks’, EMc, 9 (1981), 447–54

D. Gill : ‘Mandores and Colachons’, GSJ, 34 (1981), 130–41

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C. Page : ‘The 15th-Century Lute: New and Neglected Sources’, EMc, 9 (1981), 11–21

R. Spencer : ‘Lute and Guitar’, How Music Works, ed. K. Spence and G. Swayne (New York and
London, 1981), 79–92

G. Ferraris : ‘Liuto, arciliuto, chitarrone, strumenti dell'età barocca in Italia’, Il ‘Fronimo’, 39

(1982), 11–18

C. Page : ‘German Musicians and their Instruments’, EMc, 10 (1982), 192–200

J.M. Ward : ‘Changing the Instrument for the Music’, JLSA, 15 (1982), 27–39

J. Dugot : ‘Description des luths de musée instrumental du C.N.S.M.’, Musique ancienne, 19

(1985), 78–84

J. Dugot : ‘Some Lutes in Paris Museums’, JLSA, 16 (1983), 27–56; xvii–xviii (1984–85), 53–105

F. Rossi : Il liuto a Venezia dal Rinascimento al Barocco (Venice, 1983)

S. Toffolo : ‘The Corporation of Lute-Makers in Venice: Historical Aspects’, The Lute, 23 (1983),
29–32

C. Young : ‘Zur Klassification und ikonographischen Interpretation mittelalterlicher

Zupfinstrumente’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, 8 (1984), 67–104

F. Getreau : ‘The Lute Collection of the Paris Museum of Musical Instruments: its Character,
Formation and Development’, JLSA, 17–18 (1984–5), 50–52

O. Cristoforetti : ‘Les Piccinini et l'évolution organologique du luth à la fin du XVIe siècle’,

Musique ancienne, 19 (1985), 4–19

C. Gonzales Marcos : ‘Les luths du Museu de la Música de Barcelona’, Musique ancienne, 16–17
(1983), 22–73; xix (1985), 62–77

S. Howell : ‘Ramos de Pareja's Brief Discussion of Various Instruments’, JAMIS, 11 (1985), 14–37

N. North : Continuo Playing on the Lute, Archlute and Theorbo (London, 1985)

P.L. Polato : ‘Liutai veneziani nei secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII: ricerca documentaria nell'Archivio di
Stato di Venezia’, Flauto dolce, no.12 (1985), 6–15

S. Toffolo and M.P. Pedani : ‘Una famiglia di liutai tedeschi a Venezia: I Tieffenbrucker’, Il
‘Fronimo’, 13 (1985), 56–62

D. Gill : ‘Alternative Lutes: the Identity of 18th-Century Mandores and Gallichones’, The Lute, 26
(1986), 51–62

H. Heyde : Musikinstrumentenbau im 15.–19. Jahrhundert: Kunst, Handwerk, Entwurf

(Wiesbaden, 1986)

Lute Symposium: Utrecht 1986 [incl. M. Lowe: ‘Renaissance and Baroque Lutes: a False
Dichotomy: Observations on the Lute in the Seventeenth Century’, 124–39]

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I. Watschorn : ‘Einige bau- und spieltechnische Aspekte der “Barocklaute” anhand
zeitgenössischer Beschreibungen, Ikonographien und vorhandener Instrumente’, Zupf- und
Schlaginstrumente des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts: Blankenburg, Harz, 1986, 33–47

S. Toffolo : Antichi strumenti veneziani 1500–1800: quattro secoli di liuteria e cembalaria

(Venice, 1987)

D. Poulton : ‘The Early History of the Lute’, JLSA, 20–21 (1987–8), 1–21

A. Bollini : ‘L'attività liutistica a Milano dal 1450 al 1550: nuovi documenti’, Il ‘Fronimo’, 16
(1988), 9–23

C. Massip : ‘Facteurs d'instrument et maîtres à danser parisiens au XVIIe siècle’,

Instrumentistes et luthiers parisiens: XVIIe–XIXe siècles, ed. F. Getreau and B. de Andia (Paris,
1988), 17–34

H. Minamino : Sixteenth-Century Lute Treatises with Emphasis on Process and Techniques of

Intabulation (diss., U. of Chicago, 1988)

F. Pavan : ‘Liutisti itinerati e rapporti culturali fra le corti italiane del primo Cinquecento’, Il
‘Fronimo’, 17 (1989), 42–53

A. Corona-Alcalde : ‘The Vihuela and the Guitar in Sixteenth-Century Spain: a Critical Appraisal
of some of the Existing Evidence’, The Lute, 30 (1990), 3–24

S. Toffolo : ‘Sul rapporto tra liuteria e iconografia in area veneto-lombarda tra Cinque e
Seicento’, Liuteria e musica strumentale a Brescia tra Cinque e Seicento: Salò 1990, 45–61

K. Martius and K. Schulze : ‘Ernst Busch und Paul Hiltz: zwei Nürnberger Lauten- und
Violenmacher der Barockzeit’, Anzeigen des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (1991), 145–83

G.M. Ongaro : ‘The Tieffenbruckers and the Business of Lute-Making in Sixteenth-Century

Venice’, GSJ, 44 (1991), 46–54

R. Lundberg : ‘In Tune with the Universe: the Physics and Metaphysics of Galileo's Lute’, Music
and Science in the Age of Galileo, ed. V.A. Coelho (Dordrecht, 1992), 211–39

J. Sage : ‘A New Look at Humanism in 16th-Century Lute and Vihuela Books’, EMc, 20 (1992),
633–41

E. Neubauer : ‘Der Bau der Laute und ihre Besaitung nach arabischen, persischen und
türkischen Quellen des 9. bis 15. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-
islamischen Wissenschaften, 8 (1993), 279–378

S. Toffolo : ‘Sui liutai tedeschi a Venezia nel Cinque e Seicento e sui rapporti tra liuteria tedesca
e pittura Veneziana’, Venedig und Oberdeutschlang in der Renaissance, Studi, 9 (Sigmaringen,
1993), 197–205

P. Forrester : ‘An Elizabethan Allegory and some Hypotheses’, The Lute, 34 (1994), 11–14

C. Meyer : ‘Eine Lauten-Unterweisung aus dem späten 15. Jahrhundert’, Musik in Bayern, no.49
(1994), 25–33

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M. Burzik : Quellenstudien zu europäischen Zupfinstrumentenformen (Kassel, 1995)

S. Court : ‘Renaissance Instrumental Ensembles: the Role of the Lute in Sixteenth-Century

Consorts – Evidence from Terzi's Intabulations’, Performance Practice Review, 8 (1995), 147–70

P. Király : A lantjáték Magyarországon a XV. századtól a XVII. század közepéig [Lute playing in
Hungary from the 15th century until the mid-17th century] (Budapest, 1995) [with Ger.
summary]

L. Sayce : ‘Continuo Lutes in 17th and 18th-Century England’, EMc, 23 (1995), 666–84

D. Van Edwards : ‘Talbot's English Theorbo Reconsidered’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.78 (1995), 32–
3

K. Martius : Leopold Widhalm und der Nürnberger Lauten- und Geigenbau im 18. Jahrhundert
(Frankfurt, 1996)

V.A. Coelho, ed.: Performance on Lute, Guitar and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern
Interpretation (Cambridge, 1997)

Die Laute (1998–)

S. Pasqual and R. Regazzi : Le radici del successo della liuteria a Bologna (Bologna, 1998)

Acoustique et instruments anciens: Paris 1998

D.A. Smith : History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance (forthcoming)

C: Theoretical and pedagogical

MersenneHU

PraetoriusSM, ii

VirdungMG

H. Arnaut de Zwolle : Treatise (MS, c1440; F-Pn lat.7295); facs., Fr. trans. and commentary in G.
Le Cerf and E.-R. Labande: Instruments de musique du XVe siècle (Paris, 1932/R)

J. Tinctoris : De inventione et usu musicae (Naples, c1481–3); ed. K. Weinmann (Regensburg,

1917, rev. 2/1961 by W. Fischer)

H. Gerle : Musica teusch (Nuremberg, 1532/R, rev. 3/1546/R as Musica und Tabulatur)

J. Bermudo : Declaración de instrumentos musicales (Osuna, 1555/R)

J.-B. Besard : Thesaurus harmonicus (Cologne, 1603/R; Eng. trans. of appx in R. Dowland:
Varietie of Lute-Lessons, 1610)

T. Robinson : The Schoole of Musicke (London, 1603/R); ed. in CM (1971)

R. Dowland : Varietie of Lute-Lessons (London, 1610/R) [incl. section by J. Dowland, and Eng.
trans. of appx to J.-B. Besard: Thesaurus harmonicus, 1603]

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T. Mace : Musick's Monument (London, 1676/R)

E.G. Baron : Historisch-theoretisch und practische Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten
(Nuremberg, 1727/R; Eng. trans., 1976, as Study of the Lute)

M. Southard and S. Cooper : ‘A Translation of Hans Newsidler's Ein Newgeordent künstlich

Lautenbuch ’, JLSA, 11 (1978), 5–25

D: Construction
I. Harwood : ‘A Fifteenth-Century Lute Design’, LSJ, 2 (1960), 3–8

M.W. Prynne : ‘Lute Bellies and Barring’, LSJ, 6 (1964), 7–12

F. Hellwig : ‘On the Construction of the Lute Belly’, GSJ, 21 (1968), 129–45

F. Hellwig : ‘An Example of Lute Restoration’, GSJ, 23 (1970), 64–8

D. Edwards : ‘A Geometrical Construction for a Lute Profile’, LSJ, 15 (1973), 48–9

D. Abbott and E. Segerman : ‘Strings in the 16th and 17th Centuries’, GSJ, 27 (1974), 48–73

F. Hellwig : ‘Lute Construction in the Renaissance and the Baroque’, GSJ, 27 (1974), 21–30

F. Hellwig : ‘Lute-Making in the Late 15th and the 16th Century’, LSJ, 16 (1974), 24–38

R. Lundberg : ‘Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Lute-Making’, JLSA, 7 (1974), 31–50

D. Abbott and E. Segerman : ‘On Lute Bridges and Frets’, EMc, 3 (1975), 295 only

D. Abbott and E. Segerman : ‘Gut Strings’, EMc, 4 (1976), 430–37

D. Abbott and E. Segerman : ‘The Geometric Description and Analysis of Instrument Shapes’,
FoMRHI Quarterly, no.2 (1976), 7–13

J. Downing : ‘Lute Bridges and Frets’, EMc, 4 (1976), 365–7

I. Firth : ‘Acoustical Experiments on the Lute Belly’, GSJ, 30 (1977), 56–63

C. Bouterse : ‘Reconstructing the Medieval Arabic Lute’, GSJ, 32 (1979), 2–9

M. Lowe : ‘An Assessment of the Progress of Twentieth-Century Lute-Making, with Suggestions

for Future Development’, Le luth et sa musique II: Tours 1980, 157–62

G. Söhne : ‘On the Geometry of the Lute’, JLSA, 13 (1980), 35–54

W. Samson : ‘Lute Outlines: a Pragmatic Approach to Geometrical Description’, FoMRHI

Quarterly, no.25 (1981), 35–8

R.H. Wells : ‘Number Symbolism in the Renaissance Lute Rose’, EMc, 9 (1981), 32–42

S. Barber : ‘Making Lute Moulds’, The Lute, 22 (1982), 21–3

K. Coates : Geometry, Proportion and the Art of Lutherie (Oxford, 1985)

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J. Dugot : ‘La facture du luth’, La facture instrumentale européenne: suprématies nationales et
enrichèssement mutuel, Musée instrumental du Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de
Paris, 6 Nov 1985 – 1 March 1986 (Paris, 1985), 35–51 [exhibition catalogue]

D. Edwards : ‘Gut Strings and Angled Bridges’, The Lute, 25 (1985), 17–28

Lute Symposium: Utrecht 1986 [incl. R. Nurse: ‘Design and Structural Development of the Lute
in the Renaissance’, 101–12; J. Dugot: ‘Some Aspects of the Construction of Archlutes and
Theorboes in Venice (ca. 1600–1650)’, 113–23]

R. Lundberg : ‘Historical Lute Construction: the Erlangen Lectures’, American Lutherie, no.19
(1989), 6–19; no.20 (1989), 40–53; no.21 (1990), 16–29; no.22 (1990), 20–27; no.23 (1990), 42–
53; no.24 (1990), 40–53; no.28 (1991), 8–17; no.29 (1992), 10–19; no.30 (1992), 28–39; no.31
(1992), 46–54; no.35 (1993), 34–43; no.36 (1993), 32–8; no.37 (1994), 32–8; no.38 (1994), 8–17

M. Peruffo : ‘New Hypothesis on the Construction of Bass Strings for Lutes and other Gut-String
Instruments’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.62 (1991), 22–36

E. Segerman : ‘The Size of the English 12-Course Lute’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.92 (1998), 31–2

E: Notation and tunings

W. Apel : The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900–1600 (Cambridge, MA, 1942, 5/1961; Ger.
trans., rev., 1970)

G. Hayes : ‘Instruments and Instrumental Notation: the Lute’, The Age of Humanism, 1540–
1630, NOHM, 4 (1968), 709–83, esp. 721ff

J. Tichota : ‘Intabulationen und tschechischer Gemeinschaftsgesang an der Wende des 16.

Jahrhunderts’, Musica bohemica et europaea: Brno V 1970, 63–9

H.M. Brown : ‘Embellishment in Early Sixteenth-Century Italian Intabulations’, PRMA, 100

(1973–4), 49–83

D. Poulton : ‘Graces of Play in Renaissance Lute Music’, EMc, 3 (1975), 107–14

M. Lindley : ‘Luis Milan and Meantone Temperament’, JLSA, 11 (1978), 45–62

H. Charnassé : ‘Transkription deutsches Lautentabulaturen par Computer’, Gitarre & Laute, 1/4
(1979), 16–23

W. Boetticher : ‘Zum Problem der ältesten handschriftlich überlieferten Lautentabulaturen’, Ars

musica, musica scientia: Festschrift Heinrich Hüschen, ed. D. Altenburg (Cologne, 1980), 61–5

Le luth et sa musique II: Tours 1980 [incl. J. Tichota: ‘Problèmes d'édition des tablatures de
rédaction défectueuse’, 43–58; H.M. Brown: ‘La Musica Ficta dans les mises en tablatures
d'Albert de Rippe et Adrian Le Roy’, 163–82]

G. Söhne : ‘Regelmässige Temperaturen auf der Laute’, Gitarre & Laute, 4 (1982), 98–91

M.L. Göllner : ‘On the Process of Lute Intabulation in the Sixteenth Century’, Ars iocundissima:
Festschrift für Kurt Dorfmüller, ed. H. Leuchtmann and R. Münster (Tutzing, 1984), 83–96

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M. Lindley : Lutes, Viols and Temperaments (Cambridge, 1984)

H. Minamino : ‘Transformation in Intabulation’, JLSA, 17–18 (1984–5), 114–17

H.M. Brown : ‘The Importance of Sixteenth-Century Intabulations’, Lute Symposium: Utrecht

1986, 1–29

H.M. Brown : ‘Bossinensis, Willaert, and Verdelot: Pitch and the Conventions of Transcribing
Music for Lute and Voice in Italy in the Early Sixteenth Century’, RdM, 75 (1989), 25–46

F. Dry : Accords et frettages du luth et de la vihuela d'après quelques traités des XVI et XVII
siècles (Paris, 1989)

E. Schulze-Kurz : Die Laute und ihre Stimmungen in der ersten Hälfte des 17 Jahrhunderts
(Wilsingen, 1990)

S. Buetens : The Meaning and Performance of Ornament Signs in English Lute Tablatures
(Menlo Park, CA, 1991)

J. Le Cocq : ‘The Pitch and Tuning in French Lute Song: 1603–1643’, The Lute, 32 (1992), 46–71

D. Tunley : ‘Tunings and Transpositions in the Early 17th-Century French Lute Air’, EMc, 21
(1993), 203–11

M. Shepherd : ‘The Interpretation of Signs for Graces in English Lute Music’, The Lute, 36
(1996), 37–84

F: Repertory
A. Koczirz : ‘Österreichische Lautenmusik zwischen 1650 und 1720’, SMw, 5 (1918), 49–96; also
pubd as introduction to DTÖ, 1, Jg.25/2 (1918/R)

H. Sommer : Lautentraktate des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in Rahmen der deutschen und
französischen Lautentabulatur (diss., U. of Berlin, 1923)

A. Koczirz : ‘Böhmische Lautenkunst um 1720’, Alt-Prager Almanach (1926), 88–100

P. Warlock : The English Ayre (London, 1926/R)

J. Zuth : Handbuch der Laute und Gitarre (Vienna, 1926–8/R)

L. de La Laurencie : Les luthistes (Paris, 1928/R)

O.J. Gombosi : Bakfark Bálint élete és müvei (1507–1576)/Der Lautenist Valentin Bakfark (1507–
1576) (Budapest, 1935, rev. 2/1967 by Z. Falry in Ger. only)

H.-P. Kosack : Geschichte der Laute und Lautenmusik in Preussen (Kassel, 1935)

R. Newton : ‘English Lute Music of the Golden Age’, PMA, 65 (1938–9), 63–90

F.J. Giesbert : Schule für die Barocklaute (Mainz, 1940)

A. Koczirz, ed.: Wiener Lautenmusik des 18. Jahrhundert, EDM, 2nd ser., 1 (1942)

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W. Boetticher : Studien zur solistischen Lautenpraxis des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1943)

J.M. Ward : The Vihuela da Mano and its Music (1536–1576) (diss., New York U., 1953)

La musique instrumentale de la Renaissance: Paris 1954

M. Rollin : ‘Le “tombeau” chez les luthistes Denis Gautier, Jacques Gallot, Charles Mouton’,
XVIIe siècle, nos.21–2 (1954), 463–79

D. Lumsden : The Sources of English Lute Music, 1540–1620 (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1955)

L.H. Moe : Dance Music in Printed Italian Lute Tablatures from 1507 to 1611 (diss., Harvard U.,
1956)

Le luth et sa musique: Neuilly-sur-Seine 1957

D. Heartz : Sources and Forms of the French Instrumental Dance in the Sixteenth Century (diss.,
Harvard U., 1957)

A. Malecek : ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Wiener Lautenspieler’, Jb des Vereins für Geschichte
der Stat Wien, 13 (1957), 63–92

J. Jacquot : ‘Le luth et sa musique: vers une organisation internationale des recherches’, AcM, 30
(1958), 89–99

W.S. Casey : Printed English Lute Instruction Books, 1568–1610 (diss., U. of Michigan, 1960)

G. Lefkoff, ed.: Five Sixteenth Century Venetian Lute Books (Washington DC, 1960)

J. Ward : ‘The Lute Music of MS Royal Appendix 58’, JAMS, 13 (1960), 117–25

W. Rubsamen : ‘Scottish and English Music of the Renaissance in a Newly-Discovered

Manuscript’, Festschrift Heinrich Besseler, ed. E. Klemm (Leipzig, 1961), 259–84

Z. Stęszewska : Tance polskie z tabulatur lutniowych [Polish dances in lute tablature], 1–2
(Kraków, 1962–6)

H. Radke : ‘Beiträge zur Erforschung der Lautentabulaturen des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts’, Mf,
16 (1963), 34–51

J. Tichota : ‘Tabulatory pro loutnu a přibuzné nástroje na území ČSSR’ [Tablatures for lutes and
related instruments in Czechoslovakia], Studie a materiály k dějinám starší české hudby (Praha,
1965), 139–49

E. Vogl : ‘Lautenisten der böhmischen Spätrenaissance’, Mf, 18 (1965), 28–901

J. Ward : ‘Parody Technique in 16th-Century Instrumental Music’, The Commonwealth of Music,

ed. G. Reese and R. Brandel (New York, 1965), 208–28

C.M. Simpson : The British Broadside Ballad and its Music (New Brunswick, NJ, 1966)

K. Dorfmüller : Studien zur Lautenmusik in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Tutzing,
1967)

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H.B. Lobaugh : Three German Lute Books: Denss's ‘Floregium’, 1594; Reymann's ‘Noctes
musicae’, 1598; Rude's ‘Flores musicae’ 1600 (diss., U. of Rochester, 1968)

E. Pohlmann : Laute, Theorbe, Chitarrone: die Instrumente, ihre Musik und Literatur von 1500
bis zur Gegenwart (Bremen, 1968, enlarged 5/1982) [incl. bibliography]

W.H. Rubsamen : ‘The Earliest French Lute Tablature’, JAMS, 21 (1968), 286–99

K. Dorfmüller : ‘Die Edition der Lautentabulaturen’, Musikalische Edition im Wandel

historischen Bewusstseins, ed. T.G. Georgiades (Kassel, 1971), 189–202

H. Radke : ‘Zum Problem der Lautentabulatur-Übertragung’, AcM, 43 (1971), 94–103

P. Danner : ‘Before Petrucci: the Lute in the 15th Century’, JLSA, 5 (1972), 4–17

D. Heartz : ‘Mary Magdalen, Lutenist’, JLSA, 5 (1972), 52–67

W. Rave : Some Manuscripts of French Lute Music, 1630–1700 (diss., U. of Illinois, 1972)

A. Rooley and J. Tyler : ‘The Lute Consort’, LSJ, 14 (1972), 13–24

R. Henning : ‘German Lute Tablature and Conrad Paumann: Commemorating the 500th
Anniversary of his Death’, LSJ, 15 (1973), 7–10

U. Henning : ‘The Lute made Easy: a Chapter from Virdung's Musica getutscht (1511)’, LSJ, 15
(1973), 20–36

J. Tichota : ‘Francouzská loutnová hudba v Čechách’ [French lute music in Bohemia], MMC, nos.
25–6 (1973), 7–77 [with Ger. summary]

T. Heck : ‘Lute Music: Tablatures, Textures and Transcriptions’, JLSA, 7 (1974), 19–30

H. Tischler : ‘The Earliest Lute Tablature?’, JAMS, 27 (1974), 100–03

C.N. Amos : Lute Practice and Lutenists in Germany between 1500 and 1750 (diss., U. of Iowa,
1975)

L. Nordstrom : ‘The English Lute Duet and Consort Lesson’, LSJ, 18 (1976), 5–22

D. Fallows : ‘15th-Century Tablatures for Plucked Instruments: a Summary, a Revision and a

Suggestion’, LSJ, 19 (1977), 7–33

W. Boetticher : Handschriftlich überlieferte Lauten- und Gitarrentabulaturen des 15. bis 18.
Jahrhunderts: beschreibender Katalog (Munich, 1978)

J. Jacquot : ‘Le luth et sa musique: from the Neuilly Colloquium to the Corpus of French
Lutenists’, LSJ, 20 (1978), 7–17

D. Lyons : Lute, Vihuela, Guitar to 1800: a Bibliography (Detroit, 1978)

P. Päffgen : Laute und Lautenspiel in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts: Beobachtungen zur
Bauweise und Spieltechnik (Regensburg, 1978)

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Le luth et sa musique II: Tours 1980 [incl. A. Bailes: ‘An Introduction to French Lute Music of
the XVIIth Century’, 213–29]

C. Page : ‘French Lute Tablature in the 14th Century?’, EMc, 8 (1980), 488–91

W.F. Prizer : ‘Lutenists at the Court of Mantua in the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth
Centuries’, JLSA, 13 (1980), 5–34

J.-M. Vaccaro : La musique de luth en France au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1981)

D. Ledbetter : ‘Aspects of 17th-Century Lute Style Reflected in the Works of the Clavecinistes’,
The Lute, 22 (1982), 55–67

E.A. Bowles : La pratique musicale au Moyen Age/Musical Performance in the Late Middle Ages
(Geneva, 1983)

C.P. Comberiati : ‘On the Threshold of Homophony: Texture in Sixteenth-Century Lute Music’,
JMR, 4 (1983), 331–52

J. Glixon : ‘Lutenists in Renaissance Venice: some Notes from the Archives’, JLSA, 16 (1983), 15–
26

F. Marincola : ‘The Instructions from Vincenzo Capirola’s Lute Book: a New Translation’, The
Lute, 23 (1983), 23–8

V. Coelho and others: ‘Studies in the Lute and its Music: Prospects for the Future’, JLSA, 17–18
(1984–5), 118–32

V. Ivanoff : ‘Das Lautenduo im 15. Jahrhundert’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, 8 (1984),
147–62

J.M. Meadors : Italian Lute Fantasias and Ricercars Printed in the Second Half of the Sixteenth
Century (diss., Harvard U., 1984)

J. Tichota : ‘Bohemika a český repertoár v tabulaturách pro renesanční loutnu’ [Bohemiana and
the Czech repertory in tablature for the Reniassance lute], MMC, no.31 (1984), 143–222

D.J. Buch : ‘Style brisé, style luthée, and the choses luthées’, MQ, 71 (1985), 52–67, 220–21

P. Päffgen : ‘Ein artliches Lob der Lauten: Blüte und Niedergang von Laute und Lautenspiel im
16.–18. Jahrhundert’, Concerto, 2 (1985), 48–55

R. Toft : ‘An Approach to Performing the Mid 16th-Century Italian Lute Fantasia’, The Lute, 25
(1985), 3–16

L. Hoffmann-Erbrecht : ‘Lautenspiel und Lautenkomposition in Schlesien’, Musikgeschichte

Schlesiens (Dülmen, 1986), 77–89

Lute Symposium: Utrecht 1986 [incl. A.J. Ness: ‘The Siena Lute Book and its Arrangements of
Vocal and Instrumental Part-Music’, 30–49; L. Nordstrom: ‘The Lute in Settings for Consort’, 50–
63]

S. McCoy : ‘Lost Lute Solos Revealed in a Paston Manuscript’, The Lute, 26 (1986), 21–39

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T.J. McGee : ‘Instruments and the Faenza Codex’, EMc, 14 (1986), 480–90

C. Meyer : Contributions à l'étude des sources de la musique de luth dans les Pays germaniques
au XVIIème siècle (diss., U. of Strasbourg II, 1986)

H. Minamino : ‘Conrad Paumann and the Evolution of Solo Lute Practice in the Fifteenth
Century’, JMR, 6 (1986), 291–310

W.F. Prizer : ‘The Frottola and the Unwritten Tradition’, Studi musicali, 15 (1986), 3–37

D. Ledbetter : Harpsichord and Lute Music in 17th-Century France (London, 1987)

S. McCoy : ‘Edward Paston and the Textless Lute-Song’, EMc, 15 (1987), 221–7

P. Päffgen : ‘Lautenmusik vor 1500’, Gitarre & Laute, 9/6 (1987), 58–61

M. Spring : The Lute in England and Scotland after the Golden Age, 1629–1750 (diss., U. of
Oxford, 1987)

D.J. Buch : ‘Texture in French Baroque Lute Music and Related Ensemble Repertories’, JLSA, 20–
21 (1987–8), 120–54

R. d'A. Jensen : The Lute Ricercar in Italy, 1507–1517 (diss., U. of California, 1988)

J.J. Kmetz, ed.: Die Handsschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Basel. Katalog der
Musikhandschriften des 16. Jahrhunderts: Quellenkritische und historische Untersuchung
(Basle, 1988)

A. Schlegel : ‘Bemerkungen zur “Rhétorique des dieux”’, Gitarre & Laute, 11/2 (1989), 17–23

J. Griffiths : ‘Une fantaisie de la Renaissance: an Introduction’, JLSA, 23 (1990), 1–16

D. Ledbetter : ‘French Lute Music 1600–1650: Towards a Definition of Genres’, The Lute, 30
(1990), 25–47

D. Fabris : ‘Influenze stilistiche e circolazione manoscritta della musica per liuto in Italia e in
Francia nella prima metà del Seicento’, RdM, 77 (1991), 311–33

D. Fabris : ‘Voix et instruments pour la musique de danse: à propos des airs pour chanter et
danser dans les tablatures italiennes de luth’, Le Concert des voix et des instruments à la
Renaissance: Tours 1991, 389–422

C. Meyer and others: Sources manuscrites en tablature: luth et théorbe (ca. 1500–ca. 1800),
catalogue descriptif, i–iii (Baden-Baden, 1991–9)

R. Eberlein : ‘The Faenza Codex: Music for Organ or for Lute Duet?’, EMc, 20 (1992), 460–66

M. Gómez : ‘Some Precursors of the Spanish Lute School’, EMc, 20 (1992), 583–93

C. Meyer : ‘Quelques aspects de la diffusion de la musique de luth dans les Pays rhénans à
l'époque de la Renaissance et du Baroque’, Mitteilungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für
mittelrheinische Musikgeschichte, 59 (1992), 363–72

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K. Polk : German Instrumental Music of the Late Middle Ages: Players, Patrons and Performance
Practice (Cambridge, 1992)

J.M. Ward : Music for Elizabethan Lutes (Oxford, 1992)

J. Craig-McFeely : English Lute Manuscripts and Scribes 1530–1630 (diss., U. of Oxford, 1993)

D. Kirsch and L. Meierott : Berliner Lautentabulaturen in Krakau (Mainz, 1993)

V.A. Coelho : The Manuscript Sources of Seventeenth-Century Italian Lute Music (New York,
1995)

P. Lay : ‘French Music for Solo Theorbo: an Introduction’, Lute News, no.40 (1996), 3–7

V.A. Coelho, ed.: Lute, Guitar and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation
(Cambridge, 1997) [incl. D. Fabris: ‘Lute Tablature Instructions in Italy: a Survey of the Regole
from 1507–1759’, 16–46]

A. Brinzing : ‘Formen und Traditionen in den deutschen Lautentänzen des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Die
Laute, 1 (1998), 5–17

P. Király : ‘Einige Beobachtungen und Anmerkungen ber Lautenmusikquellen, Lautenisten und

Amateure im 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert’, Die Laute, 1 (1998), 24–44

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