John Dowland, “Can She Excuse My

Wrongs?”

Lute Song in Elizabethan England

Was the Renaissance Hit Parade from 1590s to 1610.

Solo voice accompanied by lute.

Lutes were also used in the French Air de Cour.

Parts of the Lute The top is called a

soundboard.

The carving on the soundboard is a rose.

Inside the soundboard & back is the belly, a skeletal structure of wood .

The neck holds the fretboard.

The head is at an angle to decrease string tension.

Lute Strings Strings were held taut by

the bridge and nut.

Strings were made of sheep intestine, sometimes combined with metal.

Strings were arranged in sets of 2 called courses, except the highest string, a single called a chanterelle.

An 8-course Renaissance Lute will have 15 strings.

Queen Elizabeth was an Accomplished Lutist

John DolandJohn Doland(1563 - 1626)

Virtuosic Virtuosic LutenistLutenist

Sensitive Sensitive MelodistMelodist

Pensive Pensive LyricistLyricist

Capable SingerCapable Singer

John Dowland's Beginnings

Born in 1563 to an English Family living outside Dublin

Family Class was upper artisan, like masons and tailors.

Early musical training unknown

Education 1580, Dowland studied

with the best lute teachers, while serving England's Ambassador to France.

1588 Bachelor of Arts from Christ Church, Oxford

1597 Graduated from Cambridge

Dowland's Personal Life

Emotional, Melancholic

Motto: Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens

Catholic Conversion while in France.

His Muse was not his wife: hardly mentioned.

Musical Successor, his son, Robert

Dowland's Lute Song Masterpiece

Best known work was Flow My Tears

Arranged as a consort, it was entitled Lachrimae, and was the most famous consort of the day.

“Flow, my tears, fall from your springs,

Exiled for ever, let me mourn

Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,

There let me live forlorn.”

Job of Dowland's Dreams: Queen's Musician of Lute

Dowland, believing his Catholicism denied him the post, renounced his faith.

When Dowland returned from France, seditious Catholics in league with Mary Queen of Scots were hanged for treason.

The Queen did not care to be overthrown.

Point of fact: the post went unfilled for 4 years

The hired lutenist was not paid until a year after hired.

It was about money.

Can She Excuse My Wrongs?

Or The Earl of Essex's Galliard

1597 Dowland was commissioned by the Second Earl of Essex to set Essex's poem to music.

The Earl had fallen from the Queen's favor. And, he wanted to marry her for the throne.

Dowland's lute part was based on the melody of "Will Yow Walke the Woods soe Wylde", reputed as a favorite of Henry the Eighth

Did the song Did the song bring favor to bring favor to Essex??Essex??

Queen Elizabeth Ordered the Earl of Essex Beheaded

February 8, 1601, Robert Devereax, Earl of Essex, led a plot to seize the city of London and dethrone the Queen.

The Queen did not care to be overthrown

The Queen felt very badly afterward.

For Doleful Dowland,A Happy Ending

1612 King James I appointed Dowland a King's Musician for King's Musician for the Lutesthe Lutes.

Held the position until his death in 1626 and was succeeded by his son, Robert.

Over the course of his life, he wrote 4 lute books.