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Page 1: John Dowland, Celebrity Lute Teacher

Early Music, Vol. xli, No. 2 © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.doi:10.1093/em/cat027, available online at www.em.oup.com

205

Michael Gale

John Dowland, celebrity lute teacher

Both in his own lifetime and the present day, John Dowland’s professional reputation has

been formed around two areas of practice: as a virtuoso lutenist famed throughout Europe, and as a composer noted in particular for the series of songbooks he published between 1597 and 1612. Recent scholarship has also explored the ways in which these twin identities became intertwined. By using the medium of print to publicize himself as an author of lute-songs, Dowland was able to enhance his professional image more generally—both in the eyes of the book-buying public and amongst more elite circles that might provide lucrative opportuni-ties for patronage as a lutenist.1

Studies of Dowland’s life have often dwelt upon his rather circuitous route to royal patron-age in England (he was finally appointed one of the King’s Lutes in October 1612), and it has often been observed that this appointment—the apex of achievement in one professional sphere—apparently triggered a cessation of activity in the other.2 A rela-tive scarcity of evidence is to blame here, for little is known about Dowland’s career following his stint of royal service in Denmark (1598–1606) beyond what can be surmised from the prefaces to his printed works. Under these circumstances, the notion of a gradual decline in professional activity whilst com-fortably supported by Crown patronage seems rea-sonable enough.

However, since the publication in the 1970s of the two cornerstones of Dowland biography, Diana Poulton’s monograph and John Ward’s extended review-cum-supplement, new documents have emerged which reveal more of Dowland’s profes-sional activities at around the time of his royal appointment.3 For instance, he was also freelancing as a member of a consort, providing entertainment in the Middle Temple at Candlemas 1612 (2 February

1613, new style) alongside the lute-song com-poser William Corkine and one Richard Goosey.4 Elsewhere, Lynn Hulse has shown that Dowland and his son Robert were amongst the lutenists who received patronage at the London residence of William Cavendish, First Earl of Devonshire (1551–1626).5 The discovery in the 1970s of the Margaret Board Lutebook, apparently connected with Dowland’s teaching activities during the final years of his life, also provided valuable new information about his career.6

Together, these discoveries cast further light on Dowland’s pursuit of what we might now describe as a portfolio career—that is, a series of interlocking and sometimes overlapping professional activities rather than a single salaried post. Just as present-day composers and performers normally undertake some teaching during their working week, the same was evidently true for early modern musicians, whether in household service or within collegiate or ecclesiastical institutions. We are fortunate to possess two surviving manuscript lutebooks which contain first-hand evidence of Dowland’s teaching practices but, while both have been studied in detail (regarding dating, provenance and musical content), little attempt has been made to situate Dowland’s teaching within the broader context of his career. This study attempts to do just that, gathering together the numerous shreds of evidence concerning the pedagogical activities of Dowland and his closest colleagues, and considering how this complemented and nourished their other professional activities as performers and composers. The resulting picture reveals a group of highly sought-after lute tutors (whose reputations were enhanced by their royal patronage) enjoying the favourable market conditions of Elizabethan and Jacobean London, a hotbed of musical commerce

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and consumption. Fitted around their other duties in household service and at court, these teaching activities served an important function in their career development: their growing status as celebrity figures carried enormous cachet for the wealthy amateur musicians who engaged them, providing these professional lutenists with another pathway to further patronage and opportunity.

Two pedagogical manuscriptsIt has long been recognized that the so-called ‘Dowland lutebook’ in the Folger Shakespeare Library contains some musical material and sev-eral signatures in Dowland’s autograph hand.7 This pedagogical source was studied in detail by John Ward who drew attention to content apparently added by both student novices and various teach-ers.8 Moreover, Ward suggested that the composer ascription attached to John Johnson’s Delight Pavin (f.15r) was in fact an autograph signature, a hunch that he later confirmed through further archival research.9 More recently, Ian Harwood convinc-ingly argued on palaeographic grounds that both the music and ascription to the Delight pavan are in Johnson’s own hand, along with a substantial por-tion of the rest of manuscript.10 Taking into account its musical contents and the fact that Johnson died in 1594, the earliest parts of the Folger Lutebook probably date from c.1590.

Although the identity of Johnson’s pupil remains uncertain, it seems likely that the Folger Lutebook belonged at one time to the young Anne Bayldon, a Yorkshire gentlewoman who added her signature to the rear flyleaf.11 At some point, the owner of the Folger Lutebook seems to have had a few les-sons with Dowland, who added one complete piece, incomplete versions of two more, and a number of musical fragments. He also signed a number of his own works already present in the manuscript (see Table 1). John Ward also speculated that the four cor-antos on ff.24v–25r are in Robert Dowland’s hand, a conjecture cautiously supported by Harwood.12 Since Robert was not born until c.1591, this adds to the likelihood that the Folger Lutebook was compiled over the course of a couple of decades, during which time the owner(s) enjoyed lessons with a number of teachers including three prominent royal lutenists.

A second volume containing additions in Dowland’s hand, the Board Lutebook, only came to light during the 1970s and was the subject of detailed research by its then-owner Robert Spencer.13 A sub-stantial source of almost 50 music folios, it was probably compiled by Margaret Board (b.1600), daughter of the wealthy Sussex gentleman Ninian Board. The Board Lutebook appears to date from the 1620s—Spencer noted both an ascription to ‘Docter Dowland’ and the use of Margaret’s married name ‘Borne’ (f.32v)—although it may have been begun earlier. The first 30 folios are in what is assumed to be Margaret’s handwriting; they preserve a fine selec-tion of late Elizabethan solo music, apparently cop-ied from earlier sources for six- or seven-course lute but frequently revised to show off the potential of her larger nine-course instrument. A number of later scribes added pieces in the so-called ‘transitional tunings’ popular during the 1620s and 30s, suggesting that this manuscript also had a long usable life-span.

Again, Dowland contributed just a few pages of material: some theoretical tables near the front of the volume, a copy of an allemande by his son Robert (f.12v), and (apparently) some notational details (hold lines, fingering dots) added to some of his own works elsewhere in the manuscript. As with the Folger Lutebook, a few additional musical fragments also appear to be in his hand, presumably jotted down in order to illustrate a point mid-lesson. The Board Lutebook also contains a number of otherwise unknown works by Dowland (in Margaret’s hand) and, although it is impossible to be sure, it may be that these were acquired during the course of her studies with him. Despite its obvious importance, however, the Board Lutebook has not yet been explored in terms of what it can reveal about Dowland’s later career, perhaps because it was discovered too late to be considered fully by his biographers.14

Dowland the teacherWhat can be deduced about Dowland’s teaching from this evidence? The most striking facet is his painstaking attention to notational detail. Both his own Lady Hunsdon’s Allmande in the Folger Lutebook and the Almande Ro[bert] Dowlande in the Board Lutebook are annotated with a significant number of diagonal hold-lines, both on the bass

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courses and (more unusually) on the higher strings (illus.1 and 2). Lute tablature notation only pre-cisely locates the point at which each note begins, not where it should end; unless the same string is to be plucked again immediately afterwards, it falls to the performer to judge when the pitch should be stopped. Dowland, however, was clearly taking no chances where his novice students were concerned; he marked this information very precisely and, in doing so, clarified the contrapuntal structures of these works for his students (who were probably blissfully unaware of the finer points of voice-lead-ing being brought to the fore). A number of other

works in the Board Lutebook contain similar anno-tations: the setting of Lachrimae includes a number of hold lines and two allemandes (one by Robert, the other by John) also include other performance-related details such as grace signs and right-hand fingerings. Dowland clearly took great pride in the preparation of his pupils’ study materials, but his very prescriptive use of notation also suggests that he was particularly concerned with how the music would sound in performance.

It would be rash, however, to see this as an attempt to maintain textual control over his works—it may simply reflect Dowland’s anxiety that his

Table 1 John Dowland’s contributions to the Folger and Board Lutebooks

Source Location Dowland’s contribution

Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library, Ms. v.b.280

f.9v Signature added to existing (and untitled) copy of Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home

f.11v Signature added to existing copy of his Lady Laiton’s Almain

f.12v Signature added to existing copy of his Frog Galliard

f.14r Signature added to existing copy of his Mr Smith’s Almain; eight missing tablature letters (obscured by a smudge on f.13v) supplied.

f.16r Signature added to existing copy of his Can she excuse

f.22v Autograph copy of his Lady Hunsdon’s Almain

f.23r Setting of ballad tune What if a day (unsigned)

f.23v Incomplete version of his Mrs Clifton’s Almain

f.84v (?) Short fragment based on What if a day (staff notation and tablature)

f.86r (?) Short fragment (tablature)London, Royal Academy of Music Ms. 603 (the Margaret Board Lutebook)

f.[i]v Various theoretical tablesff.11v–12r (?) Hold-signs added to existing

copy of his Lachrimae pavana

f.12v Copy of Almande Ro:[bert] Dowlandef.13r (?) Hold-signs added to existing

copy of his Almandef.83v (?) Brief fragments in tablature

aElsewhere, a number of other pieces in the Board Lutebook include hold-lines that appear to have been added as an after-thought, for example the Gallyard by Mr Jo: Dowland Bacheler of Museque (based on a galliard by Daniel Bach-eler) on ff.16v–17r. It is impossible to ascertain by whom.

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1 John Dowland, My Lady Hunsdon’s Allmande (Folger Lutebook, f.22v), autograph copy (reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC)

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2 Almande Ro[bert] Dowlande (Board Lutebook, f.12v), copy in John Dowland’s hand, with alternative final strain added by (?)Margaret Board (reproduced by permission of the Royal Academy of Music, London)

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pupils should reflect well on him. Indeed, Dowland was apparently willing to revise his works when his pupils’ needs demanded it. For instance, the caden-tial figure which concludes the opening strain of Lady Hunsdon in the Folger Lutebook has been replaced with an easier alternative—a simpler two-part solution with the awkward string-crossing of the original removed (ex.1).15 In the Board Lutebook, the end of the Robert Dowland allemande has been reworked in the opposite vein; following its final strain, Margaret has copied in a much more elabo-rate alternative version. Although possibly the work of a subsequent teacher (or even Margaret herself), we should also consider the possibility that Dowland himself supplied this, keen to provide her with a fresh challenge.

Elsewhere in the Board Lutebook, some of the rather understated unica ascribed to Dowland also create the impression of being short, functional items conceived with specific didactic uses in mind. In a recent history of the lute, one such work was held up as an emblem of a dying age:

Dowland’s twilight, and the end of Jacobean lute music, is perhaps best symbolised by the Coranto by Doctor Dowland ... the only coranto which bears his name as a composer. The mature Dowland style of the great fanta-sias, pavans and galliards is almost entirely absent. There is no melody, little imitation, few diminutions, and half the piece is constructed of simple two-voice counterpoint...16

But this legitimate stylistic observation perhaps misses the point of these works: this is relatively simple music in an up-to-date style, most probably designed to develop some aspect of Margaret’s tech-nique. Perhaps the Coranto was intended to offer her some practice at negotiating the difficult chord shapes and tricky shifts frequently encountered in F minor, an awkward key using few open courses.

Finally, the theoretical tables on the opening pages of the Board Lutebook suggest that Dowland was also teaching Margaret to sing. These diagrams, usefully explicated by Robert Spencer, deserve more attention than space will permit here but can be seen as evidence of the wider use of lute pedagogy as a way into a much more broadly conceived musical education.17 The largest of these shows the six courses of the lute alongside the gamut, mapping sol-fa syllables against corresponding tablature positions, and seems to embody the same pedagogical approach that Thomas Robinson was advocating when he promised:

Now, when you can play upon the Lute, I will (God will-ing) shew you how your Lute shall instruct you to sing; insomuch that you may be your owne teacher, and save the charge of a singing man.18

Overall, the image of Dowland that emerges is one of a conscientious, holistically minded teacher, practis-ing what he had preached when he protested about

simple Cantors, or vocall singers, who though they seeme excellent in their  blinde Division-making, are meerely ignorant, even in the first elements of Musicke, and also in the true order of the mutation of the Hexachord in the Systeme. 19

In modern-day educational parlance, Dowland appears to have been very student-centred: sensi-tive to the needs of his pupils and willing to adapt and provide materials as required in order to aid their progress effectively. This, of course, contrasts starkly with the more frequently discussed aspects of Dowland’s professional persona, notably his keenness to assert intellectual ownership over his works and to maintain textual control over them.20 Yet as a teacher, Dowland evidently focused on his students’ development and was keen to ensure that the pieces they studied with him sounded ‘right’. But in order to consider why he should be so concerned

Ex.1 John Dowland, Lady Hunsdon’s Allmande (Folger Lutebook, f.22v): (a) bar 4, revised version; (b) bar 4, first

version (deleted)

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about this—his credentials as a lutenist were already impeccable, after all—it is necessary to explore the social contexts in which these lessons took place.

Locating Dowland’s teachingIn both of the manuscripts discussed, Dowland appears to have provided just a few lessons within a broader course of tuition from other musicians. Although there is no firm evidence, it seems very likely that these would have taken place in London, since both Johnson and Dowland were tied to the capital due to their com-mitments at court. In a seminal 1948 article, F. J. Fisher showed how London increasingly became an arena for conspicuous consumption among the wealthy classes during the 16th century.21 In this vein, it became com-monplace for the nobility to rely upon local musicians at their country estates but to engage more illustrious practitioners—particularly those with royal posts—on a short-term basis while in London.22 And as the capital gained in popularity amongst an increasingly urban, cosmopolitan elite during the opening decades of the 17th century, this provided additional opportu-nities for enterprising musicians, now sought after by aspirant merchant-class and lower gentry families as well as the established landed classes.23 It is well known, of course, that musical skills came to be regarded as a marker of refined social status during the 16th century, but the procurement of lessons with prestigious music teachers—famed through their royal appointments and printed publications—seems to have emerged as a status symbol only during the final decades of this century.

Unfortunately, it is notoriously difficult to trace these kinds of ad hoc employment; even where identifiable musicians are rewarded financially (rather than by receiving benefits in kind), their duties often remain hazily defined and regular monetary payments are seldom recorded. There are no known records of Dowland being paid in such a capacity, but one previously unnoticed payment to his friend and colleague Philip Rosseter has recently come to light.24 The Newdigate family account-books offer a detailed view of the finances of one Warwickshire gentry family, listing the expenses incurred by their sons (in Oxford and London) and daughters, one of whom studied at a boarding school in Deptford, just south of the Thames. Amongst the entries for July 1620 is a

payment of 15 shillings ‘to Roceter teaching Mistress Letis upon lewte’. The sheer size of Rosseter’s fee is striking as, elsewhere in the Newdigate accounts, much smaller payments to various unnamed lute teachers are listed.25 Of course, it is possible that Rosseter’s sum covered an extended course of lessons but, given that it falls within a small group of entries for expenditure in his home neighbourhood, this seems unlikely.26 Instead, it suggests that this well-to-do family were supplementing their daughter’s day-to-day musical education with a one-off lesson with Rosseter whilst she was in London. Presumably the kudos of learning with a man of Rosseter’s reputation justified the high cost.

The likelihood that Lettice Newdigate’s lesson took place within the vicinity of Rosseter’s home is nota-ble since he lived in an area of London populated by a number of musical professionals (illus.3). The title-page of Rosseter’s 1601 lute-song collection advertised that they were ‘to be solde at his house in Fleetstreete neere to the Grayhound’, and he later moved around the corner to Fetter Lane.27 Following his death there in 1623, Rosseter was buried in the local parish church of St Dunstan-in-the-West. John Dowland also lived in Fetter Lane, as the title-pages of his later publica-tions reveal, and for these working musicians it was an ideal base.28 Lying just outside the city walls, Fetter Lane connects two important suburban thorough-fares—Holborn to the north and Fleet Street to the south—and is very close to the various Inns of Court where, as we have seen, Dowland undertook work as a freelance. For Rosseter, it was only a short walk to Whitefriars on the north bank of the Thames, where he maintained a professional association with a thea-tre company between 1609 and 1617. Nor was it far to court at Westminster and, while travelling there, both men might have passed the succession of fine river-side town-houses that belonged to the highest-ranking courtiers in the land (including Essex House, Arundel House and Leicester House). These certainly provided employment for talented musicians, but there were plenty of opportunities closer to home too. William Byrd’s patron Thomas Paget held property in Fetter Lane itself during the 1580s, and other households close by also supported prominent musicians.29 The preface to Michael East’s Second set of madrigales (1606) is signed ‘from Ely house in Holborne’ and, when dedi-cating his First Set of Madrigals and Motets (1612) to Sir

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Christopher Hatton, Orlando Gibbons wrote that ‘they were most of them composed in your owne house, and doe therefore properly belong unto you’.30

This geographical area left its musical residents well placed to pursue opportunities across various differ-ent spheres of employment, so it is unsurprising that a number of other professionals also chose to make it their home. For instance, Rosseter’s collaborator and long-time friend Thomas Campion also lived in Fleet

Street and was buried at St Dunstan-in-the-West,31 and John Jeffreys has noted the presence of several other lesser-known professional musicians in the parish registers there.32 Other musical tradesmen operated within the same area too. In his personal manuscript miscellany, the Surrey gentlemen John Ramsey (b.1578) compiled a list of the London traders with whom he did business, including an entry for ‘Instruments of Musicke to be solde at St tandros [Andrew’s] church

3 Map of London, from John Norden, Speculum Britanniae. The firste part ([London], 1593), insert between pp.26–7. Detail showing the western wall of the city (in the centre of the image) and the suburban areas immediately beyond it. Locations mentioned in the text include: St Paul’s Cathedral (11); Fleet Street (13, running horizontally); Fetter Lane (14); St Dunstan-in-the-West (15); Aldersgate Street (h); Holborn (n, running horizontally); St Andrew’s, Holborn (p); Temple (for the Middle Temple; bottom-left corner); Whitefriars (alongside); St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield (top centre) (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Gough Cornw. 21 (2)) (reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

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in holborne. & in Fetter Lane’.33 Since Ramsey’s pre-ferred lute-maker was ‘Mr Augustine in Crouched [= Crutched] friars’, this entry must refer to a maker of other instruments, possibly the viol-maker Richard Blunt, who is known to have been working in Fetter Lane at around this time.34 A few years previously, the manuscript copy of Dowland’s Second Booke of Songs had been sold through George Eastland, another resident of Fleet Street, to the printer Thomas East who then hired John Wilbye (probably staying at the Kytsons’ town-house in Austin Friars at the time) and the lutenist Edward Johnson to undertake the proof-reading.35 The ensuing legal melee, well documented by Margaret Dowling, also saw none other than Philip Rosseter asked to give evidence. This region of London was evidently a hive of professional musical activity, and it is difficult to suppress a mental image of this close-knit circle of lutenists meeting in one of the local taverns in between appearances at court, other gigs and giving lessons in order to swap gossip and flag up forthcoming opportunities.

Among all this, firm evidence of John Dowland’s teaching is difficult to come by, but it seems likely that both he and Robert provided tuition during their visits to the Cavendish household in Aldersgate Street (again, just up the road from Holborn). There is also circumstantial evidence that Dowland was acquainted with John Ramsey, whose London town-house was located in the neighbouring parish of St Bartholomew the Great.36 In fact, Cavendish and Ramsey apparently patronised the same circle of musicians—Lynn Hulse has noted Cavendish’s 1613/14 payments to one ‘Mr Pierce’ and that the lute-song composer Michael Cavendish was employed within his household, and there is some evidence that Ramsey engaged these men too.37 Ramsey’s list of tradesmen also includes ‘a consorte from Powles [i.e. St. Paul’s] where ye boyes play. Mr Sturt. Mr Pearce.’38 The mention of John Sturt (d.1625) is of particular interest since, like Dowland and Rosseter, he was a royal lutenist living in Fetter Lane. Furthermore, he has been suggested as the main scribe of another extant pedagogical lute manuscript, the so-called ‘M.L. lutebook’, and it seems likely that he too supplemented his income by giving lute lessons in the area.39

John Ramsey also showed a keen broader inter-est in musical culture, copying lyrics from madrigal and lute-song prints by Robert Jones, John Wilbye,

Michael East, Michael Cavendish and John Dowland into his miscellany. But it is with these last two fig-ures that he shows a particular affinity and, crucially, some degree of personal acquaintance. Elsewhere in his manuscript, Ramsey demonstrates his awareness of both the hierarchical nature of Elizabethan soci-ety and the encroachment of new spheres of practice (and the power of celebrity) upon the lower rungs of that hierarchy. After recording the historical kings of England (ff.96r–97v), Ramsey provides lists of ‘Lords’, ‘Knights’, ‘Gentlemen’ and ‘Familia’, ‘Captains’, and finally ‘English ladyes & gentleweomen admira-ble for learning’ (tactfully adding ‘Mrs Ramsey’ at the very end).40 Amongst the gentlemen, Ramsey includes not only bona fide nobles but also represent-atives of the whole ‘gentleman’s curriculum’: schol-ars, poets, travellers, antiquaries, riders, fencers and of course musicians. It is here, alongside many other luminaries of the day (John Stow, William Camden, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton inter alia), that Ramsey includes ‘Mr Dowland an excellent Musitian’ and ‘Mr Ca[ve]ndishe a fine Musitian’ (illus.4).

Most interesting of all, however, is that Ramsey professes to know these men personally. A number of names listed, including those of both compos-ers, are accompanied by a symbol which Ramsey explains thus: ‘Acquainted with theise personages noated with this marke’ (f.97r). Elsewhere Dowland and Cavendish are also listed again as ‘familiares’ and ‘Personages to converse with’ (f.91v); again, they are listed here as celebrities, the figureheads of their chosen profession. It seems that Ramsey was not merely interested in what Dowland and Cavendish could teach him about music, but also in the prestige that personal contact with them could generate.

It is in the light of this that I would like to return briefly to the Folger Lutebook and, in particular, the signatures of Johnson and Dowland that it bears, since they represent the material traces of some-body’s encounter with these musical celebrities. The fact that Dowland signed some of his own works here has unsurprisingly led to suggestions that these were in some way ‘approved’ texts for those pieces—perhaps the inevitable outcome of a tradi-tion of textual scholarship that teaches us to look for autograph documents as a means of getting closer to our subjects.41 This mode of thought is tacitly reinforced throughout Poulton and Lam’s edition

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4 Part of John Ramsey’s list of ‘Gentlemen’, including composers John Dowland and Michael Cavendish (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 280, f.103v) (reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

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of Dowland’s lute music, a fundamental editorial principle of which was the use of a single source as the main copy-text for each work.42 For instance, the incomplete autograph copy of Mrs Clifton’s Almaine is selected as their copy-text and spliced to the rest of a setting from Cambridge, University Library dd.5.78.3, thus relegating the first eight bars of that complete version to the critical commentary. And, where Dowland signed copies of his works already present in the Folger Lutebook, the editors present three of these as alternate versions. Whilst acknowl-edging the independence of these from the main streams of textual transmission, a methodological exception is made nonetheless; we can only surmise that these settings were privileged due to the pres-ence of Dowland’s signature. The fourth of these signed works, Mr Smith’s Almaine, is an exception. When selecting the copy-text, the Folger Lutebook version was trumped by the setting printed in the Varietie of Lute-Lessons (1610), perhaps because that was felt to represent Dowland’s final revised text.

Strangely, however, Poulton and Lam did not use the complete autograph setting of Lady Hunsdon, preferring the dd.5.78.3 setting instead as it more closely resembles other extant settings. Their uneasi-ness about this decision is plain to see, however, and it is telling that they also felt some discomfort about rejecting the Folger Lutebook version of Dowland’s Lachrimae pavan, itself a good setting that stands apart from the central stream of transmission (and therefore a worthy candidate for inclusion as another alternate version).43 In the latter case, Poulton simply remarked suggestively that ‘it is significant that Dowland did not put his signature to this version in spite of the fact that he added his name to six other pieces in the MS’.44

Even John Ward, who eloquently discussed the mul-tiple texts for Dowland’s works (and, in doing so, mer-cilessly exposed Poulton’s editorial inconsistencies), occasionally slips back into a more traditional mode of thinking: he refers to the Folger Lutebook versions of Can she excuse and Mr Smith’s almain as settings of which Dowland ‘approved’ and elsewhere cites his signature as evidence that Dowland ‘laid claim’ to another of his works.45 For some, then, these autograph signatures are inextricably bound up with notions of authorial ownership and approval; old scholarly hab-its, it seems, die hard. This is not to deny the signifi-cance of these signatures, of course—they show that

the source was (at some stage) close to the composer, offering us the hope that it is relatively free from gross textual error. But it is a large leap from this to talking about ‘approved’ versions of Dowland’s works. Rather than accepting Dowland’s signature as bestowing his approval upon a particular item, perhaps the most that can be said is that it suggests he did not disapprove of it—which is not quite the same thing.

In any case, this distracts us from the possibility that these signatures served an altogether different purpose. We have observed that personal encounters with famed musicians were becoming increasingly prized so, whilst the Board and Folger Lutebooks were undoubtedly useful as musical documents, they had also become objects invested with a value far beyond that: these autograph materials stood out as the material residues of those prestigious social interactions. In this light, it is notable that the turn of the 17th century also saw famed English musi-cians participating in other forms of socialized scribal activity, such as contributing to the alba amicorum of passing travellers. Originally popular amongst 16th-century northern European university students, the album amicorum was a receptacle for signatures and inscriptions entered by esteemed scholars and other notable personalities. As June Schlueter has pointed out, the signing of such books was a mutually ben-eficial act, honouring both the donor and the recipi-ent.46 John Dowland’s contribution to the album of German traveller Johannes Cellarius is already well known,47 but the volume compiled by Prussian travel-ler Hans von Bodeck (1582–1658) is equally important in the context of this study.48 Von Bodeck spent time in England between April 1602 and September 1604, collecting an entry from Dowland dated 9 May 1604 (accompanied by a short lute piece), a signature and song from Campion (24 August 1604), and another entry by Rosseter. Elsewhere, an inscription dated 21 August 1604 by one Hanns von Garyn was signed ‘in Londens Fletstrets Mr. Rosseters Haus’. Once again, this small cohort of professional musicians was using its home parish as the venue for all kinds of ad hoc professional activity, including one-off lessons for wealthy passing travellers. For von Bodeck, these material traces of his encounter with London’s most prestigious lutenists must have been highly valued.

Elsewhere, there is additional evidence that Dowland and his colleagues were beginning to be

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seen as figures in the public eye rather than merely as professional musicians. For instance, copies of let-ters associated with royal musicians were included in a manuscript letter-book dated c.1615—two addressed to Dowland and one written by Anthony Holborne (d.1602).49 Although the importance of this source for fleshing out the sketchy biographies of both men has already been noted, there is another important point to be made here: the inclusion of their correspondence suggests that these musical figures were now deemed newsworthy enough for their business to be copied and recirculated along-side letters by prominent figures of the age such as Robert Cecil, Francis Bacon and Ben Jonson.50

So the Folger Lutebook signatures, rather than conferring ‘approved’ status upon a musical text, might be seen instead as providing a different kind of certification—that a particular social encounter had taken place, perhaps even that certain pieces had been studied with the signatory. Whilst the musical benefits of these lessons would hopefully be evident in any case, the physical mementos of these sessions (in the form of signatures or musical anno-tations) provided another means of advertising one’s own encounter with musical celebrity.

ConclusionSo what did those participating in these social trans-actions hope to gain from them? For wealthy young ladies like Margaret Board or Lettice Newdigate, the musical skills they acquired played an important role in their performance of widely held notions of femininity and domesticity.51 By studying with a prestigious teacher, they could also stay in touch with the latest musical trends being shaped at court and across the higher echelons of society. But above all, the engagement of so famous a music-master was a status symbol, a testament to the student’s good taste, wealth and connections—and so well worth displaying both through musical performances and the ownership of associated material objects.

For Dowland and his colleagues, the arrange-ment was no less advantageous. Giving lute lessons represented both an additional income stream and was, just as importantly, another way of get-ting seen and heard in the right circles. It provided access to patronage networks, and the evidence

discussed above reminds us that Dowland and his contemporaries evidently visited numerous house-holds across their careers—not just those of the few noblemen deemed important enough to receive the dedication of a printed songbook. It is tempting, of course, to suppose that Rosseter was teaching so late in life due to financial hardship; after all, his theatre company had been disbanded in 1617 and perhaps times were getting tough. But the fact that Dowland chose to teach Margaret Board, a young girl from an unremarkable Sussex gentry family, long after securing his court appointment suggests that this work was nevertheless considered well worth doing. Teaching was not a last resort for age-ing musicians in decline but a crucial part of the portfolio careers pursued by the most famous prac-titioners of the age.

Recent scholarship has shown how Dowland astutely harnessed the power of print in order to advance his professional status, using it both to impart authorial authority upon his corpus of lute-songs and to publicize himself to would-be patrons. But he also understood the importance and value of personal contact, and how manuscript culture—with the physical remnants of his presence offer-ing an alternative form of authority—could play an important part in his self-advancement. In this light, perhaps we should not be surprised that Dowland failed to issue his lute works in print or to produce a tutor book, despite proclaiming his intention to do so more than once.52 When he did finally pub-lish something in Robert Dowland’s Varietie of Lute-Lessons (London, 1610), it was a translation of earlier pedagogical instructions by Jean-Baptiste Besard which, significantly, began by stressing the impor-tance of studying with a real teacher rather than rely-ing on a book as a surrogate.53 The original material Dowland provided here concerned purely practical matters—stringing, fretting and suchlike—informa-tion which he was probably tired of repeating ver-bally anyway. But Dowland understood that, rather than committing his lute works or his pedagogical insights into print, there was much greater value in offering access to himself in person for those will-ing to pay for the privilege. By commodifying him-self rather than his works, Dowland forged another important (yet frequently overlooked) component of his musical career.

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I am grateful to the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council for funding this research, and to Jeanice Brooks and Elizabeth Kenny for their supervision and support. I would also like to thank Susanne Rupp and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.1 S. Rupp, ‘John Dowland’s strategic melancholy and the rise of the composer in early modern England’, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, cxxxix (2003), pp.116–29; K. Gibson, ‘“How hard an enterprise it is”: authorial self-fashioning in John Dowland’s printed books’, Early Music History, xxvi (2007), pp.43–89.2 D. Poulton, John Dowland (London, 2/1982): ‘It is odd that inspiration should have died on the achievement of a lifelong ambition, but as we have seen, the volume of his output had perceptibly lessened during his later years and it seems likely that A Pilgrimes Solace was the last magnificent flowering of his genius’ (p.79); Rupp, ‘Strategic melancholy’, p.121: ‘King James I called him to court, where he spent the remaining 14 years of his life—in silence (as far as publications are concerned). The public did not hear from him again; instead, he had become the King’s private musician.’3 J. Ward, ‘A Dowland miscellany’, Journal of the Lute Society of America, x (1977), pp.5–153.4 P. Frank, ‘A new Dowland document’, Musical Times, cxxiv (1983), pp.15–16.5 L. Hulse, ‘Hardwick MS 29: a new source for Jacobean lutenists’, The Lute, xxvi/2 (1986), pp.62–72. The elder Dowland received a gold standish (valued at 33s) in May 1612 while Robert received a number of payments up until January 1616.6 London, Royal Academy of Music, Ms. 603. For a facsimile reproduction, see The

Board Lute Book, with an introductory study, ed. R. Spencer (Leeds, 1976).7 Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library, Ms.v.b.280. For a facsimile and introductory study, see The Folger ‘Dowland’ Manuscript, ed. C. Goodwin and I. Harwood, Lute Society Facsimiles, iii (Albury, 2003).8 J. Ward, ‘The so-called “Dowland Lute Book” in the Folger Shakespeare Library’, Journal of the Lute Society of America, ix (1976), pp.5–29. See also Ward, ‘Dowland miscellany’, pp.46–51.9 For comparison with authenticated examples of Johnson’s signature, see J. Ward, Music for Elizabethan lutes (Oxford, 1992), i, p.68, n.186.10 I. Harwood, ‘Aspects of the Folger “Dowland” Lute Book (MS v.b.280)’, paper presented at Folger Institute seminar ‘Harmony’s Entrancing Power’: Music in Early Modern England, 23–4 September 2005. I am indebted to the late Mr Harwood for sending me a copy of this important study which (to the best of my knowledge) remains unpublished. However, his identification of Johnson as one of the main the Folger Lutebook scribes is discussed in The ‘Wickhambrook’ lute manuscript, ed. I. Harwood, Lute Society Facsimiles, vi (Albury, 2008), pp.ix–x.11 For a persuasive identification of Anne Bayldon, see Poulton, John Dowland, pp.103–4.12 Ward, ‘The so-called “Dowland Lute Book”’, pp.16–17; Harwood, ‘Aspects of the Folger “Dowland” Lute Book’, pp.29–30.13 First described in R. Spencer, ‘Three English lute manuscripts’, Early Music, iii (1975), pp.119–24, at pp.122–4.14 Poulton added a short appendix listing the unica (John Dowland (2/1982), pp.451–2), and transcribed them in later editions of The collected lute music

of John Dowland, ed. D. Poulton and B. Lam (London, 1974, 3/1981).15 This textual amendment was discussed by Ward, ‘Dowland miscellany’, p.50, who suggested various scenarios which might have given rise to it. More recent scholarship, however, has stressed the likelihood that composer-performers simply memorized a ‘gist’ for the works in their repertories, altering the details whenever they played or committed them to paper, for example P. Holman, Dowland: Lachrimae (1604) (Cambridge, 1999), p.37; M. Spring, The lute in Britain: a history of the instrument and its music (Oxford, 2001), p.111.16 D. A. Smith, A history of the lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance (n.p.: Lute Society of America, 2002), pp.282–3.17 Spencer, ‘Three English lute manuscripts’, pp.122–3.18 Thomas Robinson, The Schoole of Musicke (London, 1603), sig.ciiv.19 John Dowland, A Pilgrimes Solace (London, 1612), sig.[a]v.20 See Gibson, ‘“How hard an enterprise”’, especially pp.46–58.21 F. J. Fisher, ‘The development of London as a centre of conspicuous consumption in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, xxx (1948), pp.37–50.22 See L. Hulse, ‘The musical patronage of the English aristocracy, c.1590–1640’ (PhD diss., University of London, 1992), pp.51–4.23 For more on this general economic development, see L. L. Peck, ‘Building, buying, and collecting in London, 1600–1625’, in L.C. Orlin, Material London, ca.1600 (Philadelphia, 2000), pp.268–89.24 ‘The undergraduate account book of John and Richard Newdigate, 1618–1621’, ed. V. Larminie, Camden

Michael Gale is a PhD candidate at the University of Southampton and a Research Affiliate in the Music Department at the Open University, UK. His thesis is a study of lute instruction in England, c.1550–c.1640, exploring the ways in which this musical accomplishment was used in constructions of social status. Between 2001 and 2006, he was involved with the Electronic Corpus of Lute Music project (www.ecolm.org). His wider research interests include English musical culture 1500–1700, jazz studies, and computer-assisted methodologies for musicological research. [email protected]

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Miscellany, xxx, 4th series, vol.xxxix (1990), pp.149–269, at p.210.25 For example, in London, 22 June 1621: 6s 10d ‘to him that teacheth the lute’ (‘Undergraduate account book’, p.249); 2s to another unnamed teacher in Oxford (p.163).26 This included meals at the Black Swan, Holborn and at the White Horse, Fleet Street (pp.210–11).27 Philip Rosseter and Thomas Campion, A Booke of Ayres (London, 1601). For biographical information, see J. Jeffreys, The life and works of Philip Rosseter (Wendover, 1990).28 John Dowland, Lachrimae or Seaven Teares (London, [1604]), title-page; Andreas Ornithoparcus his Micrologus, trans. J. Dowland (London, 1609), sig.[a2v].29 J. Harley, The world of William Byrd: musicians, merchants and magnates (Farnham, 2011), p.194.30 Michael East, Second set of madrigales (London, 1606), sig.aiir; Orlando Gibbons, First Set of Madrigals and Motets (London, 1612), sig.[a2r]. The Hatton family held property in the neighbouring parish of St Bartholomew the Great; see J. Harley, Orlando Gibbons and the Gibbons family of musicians (Aldershot, 1999), pp.37–8.31 Campion’s works, ed. P. Vivian (Oxford, 1909), pp.xlvi–xlvii.32 Jeffreys, Life and works, p.82.33 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 280, f.116r. For a useful introduction to this fascinating source, see E. Doughtie, ‘John Ramsey’s manuscript as a personal and family document’, in New ways of looking at old texts: papers of the Renaissance English Text Society, 1985–1991, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghampton, 1993), pp.281–8.34 A tenor viol now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, once contained a handwritten label: ‘Richard Blunt/Dwelling in London/in Fetter Lane/1605’; see M. Fleming, ‘Viol-making in England c.1580–1660’ (PhD diss., Open University, 2001), i, p.208.35 M. Dowling, ‘The printing of John Dowland’s Second Booke of Songs or Ayres’, The Library, 4th series, vii/4 (1932), pp.365–80.

36 Douce 280 mentions ‘my house in greate St Bartlemewes London’ (f.8r).37 Hulse, ‘Hardwick MS 29’, pp.63–5.38 Douce 280, f.115v. On John Sturt, see A. Ashbee and D. Lasocki, A biographical dictionary of English court musicians, 1485–1714 (Aldershot, 1998), ii, p.1065. The identity of ‘Mr Pearce’ is more difficult to establish. The man included in Ramsey’s list (which cannot be dated conclusively and was probably compiled in several stages) could be either Walter Pierce, a royal lutenist from 1588 until his death in 1604 (when he was replaced by Rosseter; see Ashbee and Lasocki, Biographical dictionary, ii, p.892), or—more likely—Edward Pearce (p.890), Master of the Children at St Paul’s during the early 1600s and revered by Thomas Ravenscroft who, when discussing Pearce’s ‘compositions to the Lute’, described him as ‘the Maister of that Instrument’ (A Briefe Discourse (London, 1614), sig.a2v). Cavendish’s ‘Mr Pierce’ is rather more problematic since, as Hulse has observed, Edward Pearce had died in 1612 (‘Hardwick MS 29’, p.67, n.22). Perhaps Cavendish’s musician was a kinsman of one (or both) of these namesake lutenists—and, of course, he may also have been the same figure that played in a consort with Sturt.39 London, British Library, Add. Ms. 38539, a source notable for the highly prescriptive approach to notation (particularly ornamentation) it preserves. As Elizabeth Kenny has recently remarked, it represents ‘the preservation in tablature form of personal playing styles now considered too idiosyncratic to reconstruct [i.e. without additional textual information]’; E. Kenny, ‘Revealing their hands: lute tablatures in early seventeenth-century England’, Renaissance Studies, xxvi/1 (2012), pp.112–37, at p. 113, but also see pp.127–31. In this sense, Sturt’s pedagogical approach is congruent with Dowland’s, as he attempts to notate almost every imaginable nuance in the music that he copied for this student.40 Douce 280, ff.98r–105r.41 For a recent study that perceptively traces the tradition of investing authority in autograph sources, see A. Stewart, ‘Early modern lives in facsimile’, Textual Practice, xxiii

(2009), pp.289–305. Although Stewart’s discussion focuses on manuscript letters, many of his observations are pertinent to the study of musical documents.42 Collected lute music (3/1982), p.xvi.43 On the Folger Lutebook Lady Hunsdon: ‘Curiously this is a much less satisfactory text … possibly an early version’. Collected lute music, p.332, n.54.44 Poulton, John Dowland, p.130.45 Ward, ‘Dowland miscellany’, pp.37, 51, 46.46 J. Schlueter, The album amicorum & the London of Shakespeare’s time (London, 2011), p.28. On musicians’ contributions to these albums, see pp.101–3.47 Poulton, John Dowland, p.60.48 Von Bodeck’s album was lost during World War II but a number of earlier descriptions survive; see K. Sparr, ‘Some unobserved information about John Dowland, Thomas Campion and Philip Rosseter’, The Lute, xxvii (1987), pp.35–7.49 A. R. Braunmuller, A seventeenth-century letter-book: a facsimile edition of Folger MS. v.a.321 (Newark, 1983).50 Ward, ‘Dowland miscellany’, pp.117–18; Poulton, John Dowland, pp.47–50.51 For a useful overview, see R. H. Trillini, The gaze of the listener: English representations of domestic music-making (Amsterdam, 2008), pp.13–31.52 John Dowland, The First Booke of Songs or Ayres (1597), sig.a1r: ‘but I purpose shortly my selfe to set forth the choisest of all my Lessons in print, and also an introduction for fingering…’; Ornithoparcus (1609), sig.[a2]v: ‘My industry and on-set herein ... shall encourage me shortly to divulge a more peculiar worke of mine owne: namely, My Obseruations and Directions concerning the Art of Lute-playing.’53 John Dowland, ‘Necessarie Observations belonging to the lute and lute-playing’, in Robert Dowland, Varietie of Lute-Lessons (London, 1610), sig.br: ‘yet thinke not I set it forth to the end to draw thee away from the lively teaching of thy Maister, (whose speach doth farre exceede all writing ...)’. Despite this, Robert still refers elsewhere to ‘[when] my Father hath finished his greater Worke, touching the Art of Lute-playing’ (sig.[a]2v).

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