John Dowland

A Research and Information Guide

K. Dawn Grapes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351580519
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Classical Music

John Dowland: A Research and Information Guide offers the first comprehensive guide to the musical works and literature on one of the major composers of the English Renaissance. Including a catalog of works, discography of recordings, extensive annotated bibliography of secondary sources, and substantial indexes, this volume is a major reference tool for all those interested in Dowland's works and place in music history, and a valuable resource for researchers of Renaissance and English music.

1
Introduction

John Dowland, English lutenist, composer, translator, entrepreneur, and poet, remains one of the most intriguing figures of the early modern period. The most internationally known English musician of his generation, he played at Danish and German courts and traveled throughout Italy and France. The musician also spent time at home, where he produced the most well-received London musical print of the time, The First Booke of Songes or Ayres of fowre partes with Tableture for the Lute (1597), which was reprinted at least four times. This groundbreaking anthology of songs, which could be performed by vocal soloist with lute accompaniment, four singers, or any combination of the aforementioned, stood at the forefront of an early seventeenth-century English lute song-air craze that was short-lived, but enthusiastically embraced by those in classes that valued courtly poetry and domestic music. The tablebook format of the volume, allowing performers to sit around a table and share one book, became the standard for lute song-airs that followed. Dowland himself produced three more printed songbooks, a volume of consort of music, and a translation of an earlier theoretical treatise. The composer’s choice to set some lyrics that tapped into the early seventeenth-century trend toward melancholy helped shape his own public persona, one that encouraged visions of isolation and despair. Yet contemporaneous mentions of the composer suggest someone perceived as talented, vital, and savvy. Such a figure begs for further study.

Dowland left behind limited biographical information in the texts of a handful of letters sent and received. The prefatory material of his printed volumes allows additional glimpses into his life. Yet there remain large gaps in our knowledge of Dowland’s biography, lacunae that have been evident since the seventeenth century, when the first brief sketches of the composer’s life appear. In spite of the discovery of new archival material related to burial records and certain account ledgers and receipts in which he is mentioned, we do not know much more about Dowland than was known four hundred years ago. Perhaps we know less. Maybe it is because of what we do not know that he remains such an enigma, placing him as an object of interest for scholars, students, and performers. Further, it is not unreasonable to think that this is just the way Dowland would have wanted it, for he was a man who seems to have encouraged the air of mystery that surrounds him even today.

Where was the composer born? In what manner did he receive his early training to become one of the most internationally known performers, composers, scholars, and publishers of his day? Was he a spy? For whom? Did he truly convert to Catholicism while on the continent? If so, did he ever sincerely re-embrace the faith of the Church of England? And how did his view of the religious divide within England affect his life choices, his career, and his music? Or did they? These are the sorts of issues that have plagued Dowland scholars for centuries. Other researchers have concentrated on myriad aspects of Dowland’s works: his lyrics bring up questions of authorship, rhetorical choices, and textual-musical association; primary source textual application informs historical performance, aiding in interpretations of the composer’s compositions, regardless of instrumentation; and Dowland’s music itself, which many have deemed the most outstanding of its kind, gains appreciation through analytic inspection.

Interest in Dowland and his works has blossomed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, during which time the number of articles, editions, and dissertations exploring the musician and his music has increased decade-by-decade. Research guides on Dowland are scarce. Those that exist are either intentionally limited in size or out-of-date. This current volume is intended to aid future researchers by providing a complete guide to previously produced materials, both primary and secondary, from which new scholarship can emerge.

Works

The music catalogue and source list chapters have several aims. The first attempts to deliver a complete list of all known Dowland compositions, regardless of instrumentation or genre. The second is an inventory that collates and clarifies the many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources in which compositions written by the composer, or that were inspired by his music, are found. Compiling these catalogues proved a monumental task for, though previous scholars have created such lists, they are often limited by genre or instrument, and the few sources that attempt comprehensive coverage are now quite old. Creating a comprehensive works list for John Dowland is fraught with issues stemming from a variety of sources, starting with the composer himself. Dowland composed for different forces: lute solos, lute songs and dialogues for voice with lute accompaniment, versions of those same songs for multiple voice parts with or without accompaniment, consort settings for various combinations of instruments, and traditional four-part metrical psalm harmonizations. Sometimes the composer set the same piece for more than one of these combinations, using identical musical source material to create works previously composed for different musical combinations. In a number of cases, he gave different titles to works that share the same musical source material, with one label for instrumental works and another for vocal works (usually based on the words of the first line of text, which were sometimes added later to pieces first conceived as instrumental music). Further, more Dowland works, both attributed and unattributed, survive in manuscript copies than in prints authorized by the composer. Few of these appear in Dowland’s hand or feature his signature. As such, they may or may not reflect the original compositional thought of the musician, and titles appear in many variants, if at all. Some pieces are close approximations of versions found in Dowland’s print books or in manuscripts written in his own hand, some vary slightly, and some are completely new arrangements, based on Dowland’s original material. Concordances have helped identify some Dowland pieces and others have been put forth as the composer’s by experts, based on stylistic features, and then questioned by others.

Perhaps these complications have discouraged the creation of a complete, numbered Dowland catalogue. The closest semblance of one is found in the numbering of pieces in the 1974 Poulton-Lam volume of collected lute works (221), but that collection, as useful as it is, represents less than half of Dowland’s compositions. The works list included with the Grove Music Online “Dowland” article is more complete, but unnumbered, and it does not immediately represent material presented in multiple forms. The catalogue in Chapter 2 assigns each Dowland work a unique “D” number. Organization proved complicated. Ordering sections by type of work is not a completely clear method, due to the multivarious nature of many Dowland compositions. A chronological ordering is impossible because many of the works cannot be dated accurately. In an attempt to maintain consistency with previous pieces of scholarship that rely on Poulton-Lam numbers, I have maintained that numbering system, re-using the already established list. For the many Dowland compositions without a “P” number, I first continued with lute pieces discovered or recognized after 221, then unnumbered instrumental consort works, and finally with pieces including voice or voices, starting with those found in Dowland’s published collections and concluding with sacred pieces found both in prints and in manuscripts. Variants are conflated with the piece on which they are based. The five Poulton-Lam numbers given to variant versions of previously numbered lute works (D88–D92) are maintained, but as with all other arrangements, sources for compositions counted in this group previously are included with the number assigned to the original version of each respective work. An alphabetical index is provided at the end of the works list for reader ease. This works list is in no way intended to authenticate or dis-authenticate any individual piece, but seeks to be as inclusive as possible. Both the works and source lists, of course, would not have been possible without the diligent identification and cataloguing done by previous scholars. Inventories are compiled from many primary and secondary sources, including those listed in the editions section and secondary source bibliographies that follow.

As mentioned previously, this new works catalogue consolidates as many variants as possible. Titles are cross-referenced as appropriate. Spellings have been modernized to reduce the impractical number of early English variants. Songs (for voice or voices in any combination) are indicated in quotation marks; instrumental music titles have no quotation marks. Each musical entry includes concordance references to the source lists that follow in the subsequent chapter. For this guide, concordance does not indicate an exact copy, for very rarely is this the case. Pieces categorized under the same number may appear with different titles, in alternate keys, with different instrumentations, and in many cases (such as all of the keyboard works and works for instruments with which Dowland is not personally identified), are likely arrangements based on Dowland’s work, that belong as much to their arranger as to Dowland. Arrangers are indicated when known. Under each work listed, “† Primary:” indicates sources found in musical collections either initiated by the composer, appearing in print versions likely approved by Dowland, or existing in manuscripts in the composer’s hand or featuring his signature; all other concordance lists are categorized by instrumentation, with versions that may or may not have been known to the composer, including arrangements that are perhaps more representative of preferences and needs of the copyist or another composer than of Dowland’s. Though at times items may fit into more than one category, concordance references are placed within the category deemed most appropriate. Works with questionable authorship are marked with an asterisk (*). The source inventories include only volumes dated to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries or (rarely) ones lost but appearing in later sources based on a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century original.

The number of concordances, and possibilities of newly discovered sources, makes omissions and inaccuracies unavoidable. For any such errors, I accept all responsibility and will work to catalogue new discoveries and to correct erroneous information in updates and future revised editions. Citations for published facsimiles are provided for ease of researcher access, and readers should also consider that many sources are now available through portals such as Early English Books Online (http://eebo.chadwyck.com, subscription-based) and the International Music Score Library Project (https://imslp.org, public domain). Digitized manuscript and print sources accessible through their holding institution websites are listed with hyperlinks. The very nature of the internet, however, assures that some of these addresses will change with time. Further, as more libraries and archives work to photograph their documents, surely there will be an increase in future electronic availability.

A contents title list of Dowland’s printed volumes is included in the primary source list for easy reference. Descriptions of other sources feature content only by D number. The editions bibliography is made up only of critical collected editions of Dowland’s music. An exception was made in the case of consort music, as there is no complete critical edition. Because of this, the two most useful performance editions are listed. The sheer number of modern performance editions of Dowland’s music, for all combinations of instruments and/or voices, precludes a comprehensive bibliography of other Dowland-related scores at this time.

Bibliographies of Music Literature

Primary Sources

Much of the primary source information we have regarding Dowland comes from writings by the composer himself, through his famous surviving letter to Robert Cecil, the prefatory material included in his printed volumes, and in several theoretical-pedagogical tracts. The bibliography of primary source music literature and documentation will guide researchers to these sources. Some, such as the composer’s printed musical collections, are included both in the works section and in the primary source bibliography of literature, which seems only appropriate, as they offer both music and extra-musical texts. Annotations in the primary source bibliography in Chapter 5 provide only basic information, as readers are encouraged to explore these primary sources themselves.

Secondary Sources

Although often cast within the musicological field, Dowland studies include a wide array of interdisciplinary subject areas, including but not limited to British and continental history, religious studies, English literature, rhetoric, and philosophy. The secondary source bibliographic chapters of this guide include annotations for: books about Dowland, as well as monographs on larger topics that devote copious space to or include important information regarding the musician; exceptional doctoral dissertations that examine Dowland and his works or contribute in significant ways to Dowland discourse; academic journal articles related to the composer and his works; exemplary reference articles; internet databases and bibliographies of note; and miscellaneous items of special interest. Textbook chapters and most dictionary articles are not included, nor are items that simply mention Dowland in passing. While the majority of secondary sources chosen for inclusion were published in English, publications in other languages are also considered, if readily available through conventional library services.

Secondary source entries are organized in clearly indicated topical sections, starting in Chapter 6 with overviews of the composer and his works, reference items, and works related to biography. Entries are alphabetized within sections by author last name, with the exception of the historical biographies section, which is presented chronologically. Chapters 7 and 8 consist of sources examining Dowland’s works, source studies of original manuscripts and prints, and performance-related issues. The items in the section devoted to modern poetry are not research sources per se, but reflect contemporary perceptions of Dowland and his music.

Many entries fit well into more than one section. In these cases, each is included within the topical area that seems most appropriate, and then is cross-referenced in alternate sections. For this reason, it i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Figures
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Music Catalogue
• 3 Primary Sources: Music
• 4 Editions
• 5 Primary Source Bibliography: Documents and Literature
• 6 Secondary Source Bibliography: Overviews, Reference, and Biography
• 7 Secondary Source Bibliography: Works Analysis and Criticism
• 8 Secondary Source Bibliography: Source Studies, Print and Manuscript Culture, Performance Practice, Influence, and Legacy
• 9 Recordings
• Secondary Source Author Index
• Subject Index
• Composition/Collection Index
• Performer Index