Customer Reviews

John Dowland's Lute Songs: Third and Fourth Books with Original Tablature (Dover Song Collections)

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These Dowland books are ideal: complete, accurate, and inexpensive.
The only problem is a random editorial decison by which a few of the songs are notated "at pitch", which means the editor has arranged the music for guitar rather than writing it as it would lie on lute. This means a guitarist interested in maintaining Dowland's fingerings would have to redo the transcriptions. Still, a very valuable resource to own!!!

THE THIRD AND LAST BOOKE
I. Farewell too fair
II. Time stands still
III. Behold a wonder here
IV. Daphne was not so chaste
V. "Me, me and none but me"
VI. When Phoebus first did Daphne love
VII. Say Love if ever thou didst find
VIII. Flow not so fast ye fountains
IX. What if I never speed?
X. Love stood amaz'd
XI. Lend your ears to my sorrow
XII. By a fountain where I lay
XIII. Oh what hath overwrought
XIV. Farewell unkind farewell
XV. "Weep you no more, sad fountains"
XVI. Fie on this feigning
XVII. I must complain
XVIII It was a time when silly bees could speak
XIX. The lowest trees have tops
XX. What poor astronomers are they
XXI. Come when I call (for two voices and two lutes)

A PILGRIMES SOLACE
I. Disdain me still
II. Sweet stay awhile
III. To ask for all thy love
IV. Love those beams
V. "Shall I strive with words to move" ("Mignarda, a galliard" is Dowland's title for the solo lute version of the lyre "Shall I strive with words to move.")
VI. Were every thought an eye
VII. Stay Time awhile thy flying
VIII. Tell me true Love (with chorus)

The next three with treble and bass viols for violin and cello:
IX. Go nightly cares
X. From silent night
XI. Lasso vita mia
XII. In this trembling shadow
XIII. If that a sinner's sighs

A three-part work:
XIV. Thou mighty God
XV. When David's life
XVI. When the poor cripple
XVII. Where sin sore wounding
XVIII. My heart and tongue were twins

The next with chorus:
XIX. Up merry mates
XX. Welcome black night
XXI. Cease these false sports

"THREE AYRES FROM "A MUSICALL BANQUET"
Far from triumphing Court
Lady if you so spite me
In darkness let me dwell

GALLIART TO LACHRIMAE
"A lute solo from A Pilgrimes Solace, transcribed for guitar"

Nice guitar arrangements of the original lute music. Some fingering indications to indicate which voices to sustain would be helpful as in many cases it is impossible to sustain full note values indicated in the standard notation.

After purchasing these books (1/2 & 3/4) I immediately got use of the convenience of its page lay-out. Playing both Lute and Guitar this book is easy to understand with the Guitar notations. My favorite thing about this book is that it's printed with a few extra pages to guarantee that a two-page song is always on two adjacent pages instead of back-to-back. The only thing I didn't like was in comparison to the Stainer & Bell edition. Having Voice on top, Grand Staff realization, and then Lute; the grand staff let's you see exactly where your lower courses are tuned to. Not that its hard to figure out with standard tunings but Dowland did use a few kinds of Lutes through-out the compositions in these books. I definately recommend them for anybody studying Guitar, Lute, or Voice.

Good product at an excellent price.