Elizabethan Duets for Two Guitars
£8.50
These duets, of varying difficulty, have been transcribed from their lute origins by Oscar Ohlsen and edited by Robert Spencer. Recently revised.
CONTENTS
Drury’s Accords (Anonymous); Duncomb’s Galliard (Anonymous); Merry Mood (Anonymous); Fancy (John Daniel); My Lord Willoughby his welcome home (John Dowland); La vecchia pavan (John Johnson); Echo (Francis Pilkington); Plainsong (Thomas Robinson); Toy (Thomas Robinson).
The first type of Elizabethan lute duet was the treble and ground, of which one part was melodic and the other chordal. Both parts were suitable for teaching basic lute technique. Indeed the lutenist Thomas Robinson began his Schoole of Musicke (1603) with two treble and ground duets, fully fingered for both hands. Later in the book he included ‘equal’ duets, equal both in technical difficulty and melodic interest, usually exchanging parts for the repeat of the strain.
I have included two of Robinson’s ‘equal’ duets in this selection. The remainder also are ‘equal’, except the Daniel Fancy which develops the ‘equal’ layout one stage further, so that the players exchange parts in mid-phrase. The Dowland duet is unique in that one player has the melody throughout, while the other weaves a counter-melody both above and below the tune, and both play the bass throughout.
Robert Spencer