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Originally submitted Jan 23
The '''lute song''' refers to a style of vocal music current during the late 15th and early 16th centuries in the countries of Western Europe. It was simply a song accompanied by a lute, nearly always played by the singer.
As an independent art-song form, it reached its highest level of excellence in [[England]] in the late [[Elizabethan]] and [[Jacobean]] periods (about 1580-1620) with songs written by [[John Dowland]] and [[Thomas Campion]] in particular still extremely popular today.
The form was aided by the extremely high literary quality of the texts used, most of them of love, many of them by the renowned poets of that time.
One of the more popular songs, an anonymous composition and of uncertain authorship (though likely to be Ben Jonson) is:
:"Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow
:Before rude hands have touch’t it;
:Have you mark’t the fall of the snow
:Before the Earth has smucht it;"
:Have you felt the wool of Beaver,
:Or Swan’s down ever;
:Or have smelt of the bud of the Bryer,
:Or the Nard in the fire”
:Or have taste the bag of the Bee?
:Oh so whyte, Oh so soft, Oh so sweet was she!"
*The English popular singer, Sting, recorded a CD of John Dowland lute songs in 2006. Done “straight” and with an expert lutenist, the recording, “''Songs from the Labyrinth''”, has attracted equal measures of praise and opprobrium.
[[Category: Musical forms]]
[[Category: Songs]]
As an independent art-song form, it reached its highest level of excellence in [[England]] in the late [[Elizabethan]] and [[Jacobean]] periods (about 1580-1620) with songs written by [[John Dowland]] and [[Thomas Campion]] in particular still extremely popular today.
The form was aided by the extremely high literary quality of the texts used, most of them of love, many of them by the renowned poets of that time.
One of the more popular songs, an anonymous composition and of uncertain authorship (though likely to be Ben Jonson) is:
:"Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow
:Before rude hands have touch’t it;
:Have you mark’t the fall of the snow
:Before the Earth has smucht it;"
:Have you felt the wool of Beaver,
:Or Swan’s down ever;
:Or have smelt of the bud of the Bryer,
:Or the Nard in the fire”
:Or have taste the bag of the Bee?
:Oh so whyte, Oh so soft, Oh so sweet was she!"
*The English popular singer, Sting, recorded a CD of John Dowland lute songs in 2006. Done “straight” and with an expert lutenist, the recording, “''Songs from the Labyrinth''”, has attracted equal measures of praise and opprobrium.
[[Category: Musical forms]]
[[Category: Songs]]