18-Aug / Tis now dead Night CD / 0 COMMENTS

To introduce the ‘Tis Now Dead Night’ CD special sheet music edition, I asked Earl Christy – lutenist, researcher, composer and editor (and my partner in crime), to tell a bit about the process of creation, the reason and the need for making an edition in the first place. I am very happy to have Earl as the first guest writer to be hosted on THE WELL TEMPERED SINGER BLOG

 

 

When Michal and I first began to think of developing a program of English lute songs there were many challenges that stood before us. Even though the Elizabethan and Jacobean lute song repertoire is well known and often performed, it is not very easy to find true editions of much of the music. Except for John Dowland and Thomas Campion, without a good research library, it can be very hard to find songs by other composers and often all that are available are piano transcriptions. As we began to look through the plethora of song books and anthologies we began to realize just how vast and diverse the surviving music truly is. From fairly well known composers such as John Danyel to lesser known ones such as William Corkine, the process of choosing a program proved to be a very daunting one.

 

As our project developed and we became more familiar and comfortable with the music we began to prepare ourselves for a recording project with the Songs of Mourning by John Coperario as the heart of the project augmented by songs by Thomas Campion, John Dowland and Robert Johnson and William Corkine. With all the facets that go into preparing for such a daunting project, the collecting and selecting of music is often the most time consuming and difficult. I felt, as we approached the middle period of our ‘Tis Now Dead Night’, that an edition would be a great additional result.

 

When I was a young student I would often, as most students do, listen to my favorite players in concerts and recordings. It was a very rewarding way to be exposed to music I had never heard before. Unlike much classical music, Early music has the disadvantage that very little of what survives is available in modern editions. Early music is but a small part of classical music as a whole and lute music is an even smaller fringe. I remember hearing a sonata or suite for the first time, being captivated by it and equally frustrated by my inability to actually find the music itself. So when we were looking for other areas where we could augment our ‘Tis Now Dead Night’ recording, producing an edition and making it available immediately crossed my mind. With much of the difficult work of sorting through all the music and finding the pieces we felt best presented our vision, it made sense to me to offer a modern edition which people who listen to our recording can have so if there are songs they truly find captivating, they can play them for themselves.

 

For my edition I have been working from facsimiles of the original songs. One of the great disadvantages of early prints is the many errors which happen in the printing process. Notes on the wrong string, rhythms that don’t add up and missing bass notes are problems that you will see frequently in Elizabethan prints. Due to the expense and labor involved in woodcut prints, many obvious errors were never corrected. Often it was the job of the musician themselves to understand the correct meaning of the score. Another problem, especially prevalent in lute songbooks, is the fact that the spacing between the lute and the voice is not uniform. In the songs of John Danyel, with his highly complex lute parts, this can lead to some very confusing rehearsals for both the lutenist and the singer.

 

In making my edition, I am converting the score to fit modern typography. Soprano clef will be adopted to G clef. Accidentals will be modernized. In several songs a natural sign is nonexistent, so what would normally be a B natural is actually printed as a B sharp. I am also converting some of the lute tabulature to fit a larger instrument. Some of our songs are written for a seven course lute with the lowest course tuned to D. This was a very common tuning is the late 16th and early 17th century. But it can make many passages very uncomfortable where a low E or F in the bass must be fingered. I will make the edition playable on a 10 course lute, which is a more standard instrument now. It will make certain songs more comfortable with the open basses. For the earlier songs, such as those by Dowland and Campion, I will keep the original lute text more or less unaltered except for obvious mistakes.

 

The songs of John Coperario, which for the heart of the program, will be slightly altered for this edition. Unlike the complex polyphony of Dowland or Danyel, Coperario’s songs are clearly anticipating the new Basso Continuo style which was just about to arrive in England. They are very chordal and sparse, so I will adapt them by lowering several basses to better take advantage of the 10 course lute. This practice of adjusting the music to fit the instrument is something that is very often found in early manuscript. Many earlier songs survive in later manuscripts adulterated for a lute with extended basses.A manuscript in the British Library from 1615, the Giles Earle his booke, goes so far as to reduce lute songs by Dowland, Campion and Danyel to basso continuo songs with only voice and bass line.

 

‘Tis Now Dead Night’ has been a wonderful project to develop and see evolve. We have chosen songs which we feel best illustrate our vision for this music. The edition I see as a natural extension of the recording. It will make the music readily available to anyone who wishes to preform it and does not have the means to find it.

 

Earl Christy