Utwory na płycie:

• A Fancy
• Merry Melancholy
• A Galliard
• Walking in a Country Town
• A Gigue
• Pavan
• A Scottish Dance
• Draw Near to Me and Love Me
• Hence to me Molly Gray
• A Scottish Tune
• Scottish Hunts Up
• Mounsiers Almain
• Fantasia
• Saraband
• Battle Galliard
• Prelude
• La Jeune Fillette
• Courante
• Courante
• Cloches
• Courante
• Pavan
• Prelude
• John Come Kiss Me Now
• Fantasia
• The Spanish Pavan
• A Gigue
• A Toy
• Row Well, you Mariners
• Sir John Langton's Pavan

John Dowland:
A Fancy
Battle Galliard
Sir John Langton’s Pavan

Thomas Robinson:
Merry Melancholy
A Galliard
Walking in a Country Town
A Gigue
The Spanish Pavan
A Gigue
A Toy
Row Well, you Mariners

Robert Johnson:
Pavan
Fantasia

Daniel Bacheler:
Mounsiers Almain
Prelude
La Jeune Fillette
Courante
Pavan

Cuthbert Hely:
Fantasia
Saraband

Jacques Gaultier [?]:
Two Courantes
Cloches

Anonymous:
A Scottish Dance
Draw Near to Me and Love Me
Hence to me Molly Gray
A Scottish Tune
Scottish Hunts Up
Prelude
John Come Kiss Me Now

From the reign of Henry VIII and onwards, the lute and its practitioners enjoyed the patronage of the very highest English society. Henry played the lute himself, as did his daughter Elizabeth I, who during one period employed as many as five lutenists at her court. In 1603, when she was succeeded on the throne by James I, the tradition was maintained: with his appointment of John Dowland the king increased the number of royal lutenists, while his queen, Anne of Denmark, played the lute herself. This royal enthusiasm for the lute influenced the aristocracy, and an English style of lute music was established. A large corpus of solo music has been preserved, mostly in manuscript sources, from which Jakob Lindberg has made a personal selection. This includes obvious candidates – such as John Dowland and Robert Johnson – but also pieces by the enigmatic Cuthbert Hely, whose work only survives in one single lute book, and by a certain ‘Gauthier' – possibly Jacques Gaultier, who had fled to England after killing an adversary in a duel. The inclusion of this French lutenist also serves to highlight the abundance of French lute music in Jacobean sources, especially, as heard here, in the form of courantes. Another favourite genre in many lute books are settings, often anonymous, of Scottish folk music, and this is also reflected in Lindberg's selection. One of the foremost exponents of the lute and this repertoire, Jakob Lindberg performs the programme on what is possibly the world's oldest lute in playing condition, built in c. 1590 – and thus almost exactly contemporary with the music on this disc.

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Jakob Lindberg playing a lute by Sixtus Rauwolf, Augsburg c. 1590