English Lute Songs

The two books contain some 100 songs chosen from the definitive collections of The English Lutenists begun by Edmund Fellowes, revised by Thurston Dart and added to by later scholars.

They include many favourites and many lesser-known songs by popular composers such as Dowland, Campion and Pilkington (no known ancestor of the compiler) as well as some unjustly forgotten such as Corkine, Attey and Ferrabosco. Nearly all are for middle-range voice, with lute parts transcribed in staff notation. The books have an appropriate preface and a commentary on the words, which often throw a penetrating light on Elizabethan and Jacobean life.