Dear Lutesn2, As far as I know, William Byrd did not compose any music specifically for the lute. He wrote lots of church music and secular music for voices, lots of keyboard music, and songs and instrumental pieces for viols.
Some of Byrd's music was intabulated for the lute, notably in solo lute arrangements by Francis Cutting. There is a large number of rather literal intabulations without the cantus part, which survive in the lute books of Edward Paston. One of those lute books is the largest single source of music by Byrd, and contains many intabulations of consort songs, some of which survive only in tablature, frustratingly lacking the cantus. It has been shown that Paston also had some complete intabulations (cantus not omitted) in his library, but this music is now lost. These ghosts are mainly intabulations of 3-part pieces, many of them by Byrd, including Byrd's three-part fantasies. It is easy enough to recreate these lost intabulations, as long as the music survives complete elsewhere (i.e. in a staff notation source). Over the years I have occasionally heard people say, "If only Byrd had written for the lute." He didn't, but there is nothing to stop us following in the footsteps of Cutting and Paston, and making our own intabulations of Byrd's music. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 2:57 AM Subject: Byrd > Dear Mr. McCoy, > If MT is incorrect in saying Byrd wrote no lute music. Is Doug > Smith incorrect as well? To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
