The introduction of printed music in Italy and France at the beginning of the 16th century opened up the world of folk music to countless ensembles. New printers in Venice and Paris brought out one book after another with three- and four-part music that could be sung or played on instruments. A natural side-effect of this development was the arrangement of this polyphonic repertoire for solo voice with accompaniment. Publications in which the lower parts of the vocal originals were transcribed into lute tablature are the first examples of music for voice and lute. The songs in the first half of this concert come from these collections.

The English songs from the end of the 16th century, with their almost folk-like melodies, alternate with desperate laments whose melancholy seems to penetrate the darkest depths of the composer’s agonising existence and elevate them to a level of noble eloquence.

Almost all lute song composers were lutenists themselves, and the exclusive musical language of the instrument is not only an organic part of the accompaniment, but also a guideline for the use of the voice in this repertoire. Just as the intensity and passion of the lute’s sound extends far beyond its seemingly limited dynamic range, so too does the voice, which shares the dynamics of the lute’s intimate world, gain unexpected expressive power. In a repertoire in which many motifs are exchanged between the two performers, the voice and the lute develop a shared commitment to linear clarity and rhetorical richness, as well as a shared responsibility to the text.