The golden age of the renaissance lute, that flowering of incomparable lute music from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), is dominated by the works of John Dowland (1563-1626). His music seamlessly blends the incredible variation technique and tunefulness of the English lute school with the contrapuntal complexity of Italian lute music. In fact, his music is so highly regarded today that we often ignore his contemporaries, or downplay their contributions. The works of John Johnson (ca.1540-1594), while fairly well known, are still underrated and underperformed. The quality and inventiveness of his lute duets are unparalleled and his surviving lute solos show an incredible knack for melodic variation and tunefulness. He was, apparently, Queen Elizabeth’s favorite lutenist. The lute songs of Thomas Campion (1567-1620) surpass Dowland in their marriage of the lute part to the text, something that is often lacking in Dowland’s beautiful tunes.While Dowland’s tunes are memorable, they are not often well accompanied. More neglected still is lutenist Richard Allison (c.1560/1570-before 1610), an Englishman of high birth and a contemporary of Dowland, Johnson, and Campion. 

Richard Allison is best known today for his seven compositions included in Thomas Morley’s (1557-1602) First Booke of Consort Lessons (1599). His advanced compositional style, evidenced by the complex interactions between the consort instruments in these works, demonstrates that he thought well beyond the lute as a solo instrument accompanied by broken consort. Lesser known still, his solo lute compositions will be the subject of today’s program. This repertoire has not received much attention despite its high quality. Allison’s solo writing is marked by virtuosic embellishment of the melodic line in the repeated sections and a more active participation of harmonic lines than in the works of John Johnson. He also has the tendency to use subtle chromatic alterations to create “blue notes” in an otherwise predictable texture. The opening phrase of his Sharp Pavane has one of these beautiful, and shocking, alterations when the line unexpectedly moves from b-natural to b-flat with no preparation. 

The majority of Allison’s surviving works are pavans, which, along with the galliard, form the backbone of the Renaissance English dance suite. His single fantasy survives in two sources, the Matthew Holmes Lute Books (copied from 1588-1595) and the Margaret Board Lute Book (copied in the late 1590’s). Both versions are excellent but I have decided to use the Board version with some alterations pulled directly from the other source. Because most of his surviving works are pavans, a successful program of Allison’s music must be supplemented by other works to add variety. 

I have chosen to supplement Allison’s works with anonymous pieces pulled from manuscripts that contain many of his works, the Holmes Lute Books and the Margaret Board Lute Book. Much of the English lute repertoire is anonymous. While the dedicated work of musicologists and lutenists around the world has slowly reduced this number by cross-identifying pieces to named sources, most works found in English lute manuscripts still have no known author. I have also included a lovely work by his contemporary, Thomas Robinson (c.1560-1610). The Gigue is from his School of Musicke (1603), one of the most complete tutors on Renaissance lute playing. I chose a version of Go From My Window, which is quite different from Robinson’s published version in School of Musicke. With this program, I hope to highlight the rich and beautiful works of Richard Allison, as well as some of the music that would have been heard alongside them.