Solo Vocal

Francesco da Milano Fantasias in British Sources edited by Gordon Gregory. All the music by Francesco da Milano in British manuscript sources, all 6-course,minimally edited to preserve local variants; 20 pieces of music: 11 fantasias close to the ’canonic’ versions, 3 ornamented or corrupt versions, and 6 pieces of doubtful attribution, 46 pages.

The Collected Lute Music of Marco Dall’Aquila edited by Denys Stephens and John H. Robinson. A much expanded and augmented bound edition of the complete works of one of the great early Italian lutenists, printed over several years in Lute News, with additional information, introduction, inventory, concordances, commentary and bibliography; 32 pages of introduction, and 101 pages of tablature, all for 6-course lute, much of it not too technically demanding.

Anthony Holborne, Music for Lute and Bandora for 6 to 9-course lutes (mostly playable on 6 or 7-course lutes), transcribed and edited in two volumes by Rainer aus dem Spring. Holborne is the second best-represented composer in the sources after John Dowland: volume 1 (218 pages) contains 58 lute solos, plus variant versions, 19 bandora solos, 2 lute songs, 10 appendix items; volume 2 (148 pages) contains full critical commentary, with variant bars fully written out in tablature. This is a comb-bound reprint of the original perfect bound edition.

Songs from the additional manuscript 4900 and other early sources

An exciting collection of songs and dances all arranged for voice and recorder, flute, penny whistle or other C instruments. With chord symbols and guitar diagrams, plus full lyrics.

Barbara Strozzi's Cantata Lagrime mie for soprano (c'-g'') and and basso continuo. The Lamento Lagrime mie , a plaint and a reflection on the subject of tears, begins and ends with a heart-wrenching harmonic e-minor scale falling a 9th from e” to d#’, hovering on notes belonging to the dominant harmony, over a tonic pedal in the continuo. Trills on two of these long notes, displaced in anticipation of a possible accommodation of the harmony, increase the resulting dissonance and mimic the desire to sob of the lover who asks why his tears are not pouring forth! This 8 bar Refrain cadences on the dominant, to be followed by another plaintive question. It returns in the middle of the piece (bars 64-71) where it ends on the tonic, and is called for again at the end, in resigned acceptance of the “truth” that destiny thirsts only for his tears. Strozzi’s setting of the text alternates arioso sections in duple and triple time, all defying description as “recitatives” or as full-fledged arias. After the opening Refrain the lover invokes his tears again, with more defined rhythms and zigzagging leaps of considerable melodic difficulty.

UOEDM71 Method of Italian Singing from ‘Recitar cantando’ to Rossini (with Examples and Exercises from Historical Treatises on the Technique of Singing) by Maurizia Barazzoni. Contents: Physiology Emission Posture Registers Embellishments Passages Madrigal a voce solo Recitative Agility Solfeggio Cadenza Aria Vibrato and top C from chest The purpose of this work is to bridge the gap between musicological theory and methodological practice in the study of singing. This singing method explores the ‘Italian tradition’, an idea to which we will make constant reference in the chapters that follow. We begin with a discussion of terms and their meanings, and go on to develop a teaching course in which vocal practice is based on exercises and ‘solfeggi’ from historical sources, correlated with live testimony from those who were present at the time. It goes without saying that the full extent and complexity of this subject cannot be exhausted in the pages of a single volume. For this reason, the contents of this method should be seen as an introduction to the fundamental principles of the ‘antica scuola italiana’, the ancient Italian school of singing, which we examine from ‘Le Nuove Musiche’ by Giulio Caccini up to bel canto singing of the early 19th century.

A collection of songs from Ireland’s rich heritage arranged for voice and recorder or other C instruments. Includes ‘Londonderry Air’, ‘Cockles and Mussels’ and ‘Begorrah’.

Aria from the Birthday Cantata No. 208 for soprano, 2 treble recorders or flutes and basso continuo

Book 1: Songs of Mellancolie. Four Consort Songs by John Dowland set for mezzo soprano and viol consort (Tr. T. T. B.). Score and parts. " In Darkness let me dwell ", "I saw my Lady weep ", " Sorrow Stay, ” “ Flow my Tears ". from Dowland's Second Book of Ayres.

Barbara Strozzi's Cantata L'Astratto for soprano (a-a'') and and basso continuo. L'Astratto , the amusing fourth cantata in Arie Op. 8 3, depicts a man striving to express his suffering in poetry and song. Maybe he has pen in hand, or a library of arias to choose from, but either way he begins by stating his resolve to sing, in a recitative in D major (bars 1-26) which sets the word tormento to a poignant chromatic Passacaglia and gives the continuo a Ciaccona solo. He rejects his first attempt, in e minor (preceded by a Passacaglia Ritornello ), overwhelmed by its sadness; he interrupts the second, a virtuoso outburst in G major (bars 41-55), speaking ( Parlato ) rather than singing; he then tries a "motto" aria in D major (bars 56-79) with affected tempo changes, but can’t invent a way out of the eternal fires of Hell. He tries again without success in A major (80-101). He aborts another Ciaccona , this time in C major (bars 102-9), as "even worse" after only half a line; likewise an attempt to develop a melodic sequence in 6/8 time (110-116). Dejected and distracted ( astratto ), he claims to have tried a "hundred” things. The D major Ciaccona bass returns (124), he pours out two moving stanzas in 6/4 about the mental imprisonment of love, to his utter surprise (148), and then concludes with a smoothly flowing arioso in 6/8 (154-171) that leaps three times to the high a'' he had previously reserved for the Furies and the Heaven of desire. Every sort of contrast is exploited in this 9 minute piece, including the comic portrayal of the lover’s mental suffering.

The two books contain some 100 songs chosen from the definitive collections of The English Lutenists begun by Edmund Fellowes, revised by Thurston Dart and added to by later scholars. They include many favourites and many lesser-known songs by popular composers such as Dowland, Campion and Pilkington (no known ancestor of the compiler) as well as some unjustly forgotten such as Corkine, Attey and Ferrabosco. Nearly all are for middle-range voice, with lute parts transcribed in staff notation. The books have an appropriate preface and a commentary on the words, which often throw a penetrating light on Elizabethan and Jacobean life. CONTENTS JOHN DOWLAND Awake sweet love Clear or cloudy Come again: sweet love Come away, come sweet love Daphne was not so chaste Far from triumphing Court Farewell unkind farewell Fie on this feigning Fine knacks for ladies Flow my tears Flow not so fast ye fountains I saw my lady weep If my complaints could passions move In darkness let me dwell Lady if you so spite me Now, o now I needs must part Shall I sue? Sleep, wayward thoughts Sorrow, sorrow, stay Sweet stay awhile Time stands still To ask for all thy love Toss not my soul Weep you no more, sad fountains What if I never speed? When Phoebus first did Daphne love ROBERT JONES Fie, what a coil is here! Go to bed, sweet muse My father fain would have me take a man My love hath her true love betrayed What if I seek for love of thee? THOMAS MORLEY Absence, hear thou my protestation I saw my lady weeping It was a lover and his lass O grief! e’en on the bud RICHARD MARTIN Change thy mind since she doth change FRANCIS PILKINGTON Diaphenia Down a down, thus Phyllis sung Now let her change Rest sweet nymphs GEORGE MASON Dido was the Carthage Queen PHILIP ROSSETER If I hope I pine If she forsake me Kind in unkindness Shall I come if I swim? Sweet, come again Though far from joy What then is love but mourning When Laura smiles

The two books contain some 100 songs chosen from the definitive collections of The English Lutenists begun by Edmund Fellowes, revised by Thurston Dart and added to by later scholars. They include many favourites and many lesser-known songs by popular composers such as Dowland, Campion and Pilkington (no known ancestor of the compiler) as well as some unjustly forgotten such as Corkine, Attey and Ferrabosco. Nearly all are for middle-range voice, with lute parts transcribed in staff notation. The books have an appropriate preface and a commentary on the words, which often throw a penetrating light on Elizabethan and Jacobean life. CONTENTS ANONYMOUS As at noon Dulcina rested Sweet, stay awhile! JOHN ATTEY On a time the amorous Silvy JOHN BARTLET A pretty duck there was O Lord, thy faithfulness What thing is love? When from my love THOMAS CAMPION A secret love or two Author of light Beauty, since you so much desire Come you pretty false-eyed wanton Follow thy fair sun Follow your saint I must complain If love loves truth If thou long’st so much It fell on a summer’s day Love me or not My sweetest Lesbia Never love unless you can O what unhoped for sweet supply! Oft have I sigh’d The cypress curtain of the night The peaceful western wind There is a garden in her face Vain men, whose follies Veil, love, mine eyes When to her lute Corinna sings Your fair looks MICHAEL CAVENDISH Love is not blind Stay, Glycia, stay! The heart to rue Wanton, come hither! WILLIAM CORKINE He that hath no mistress Sweet Cupid Sweet, let me go! JOHN DANYEL Dost thou withdraw thy grace? I die whenas I do not see Like as the lute delights Why canst thou not? ALFONSO FERRABOSCO II Drown not with tears Fain I would Like hermit poor Unconstant love Young and simple though I am THOMAS FORD Fair sweet cruel Not full twelve years Now I see thy looks were feigned Since first I saw your face Unto the temple of thy beauty RICHARD GREAVES Ye bubbling springs ROBERT JOHNSON Dear do not your fair beauty wrong

Music, words and song for Summer and Harvest from the 16th to early 18th Centuries