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John Dowland’s ‘Lachrimae’ in its Continental Context
Michael Gale and Tim Crawford
King’s College, London
By 1603, the famed Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland was so closely associated with his most popular composition, the ‘Lachrimae’ pavan, that he was already signing his name as ‘Jo: dolandi de Lachrimae’.[1] (Figure 1) The very fact that Dowland felt it appropriate to do so in a Continental book indicates that the fame of this work was not just restricted to his home country of England. The widespread dissemination of this piece is unsurprising for two reasons; firstly, Dowland travelled extensively as one of the most sought-after lute virtuosi of his age, holding various posts in Germany and Denmark and, secondly, the vogue for English dance music spread rapidly throughout the German-speaking courts of Northern Europe during the later years of the sixteenth century. ... And although a number of ‘Lachrimae’ arrangements elude classification, several ‘families’ of settings nevertheless emerge, including one derived from a distinctive English G minor lute piece (perhaps originating from Dowland himself) which was transmitted in both Continental and English sources. ...
The ‘Lachrimae’ pavan is perhaps best known as either the opening pavan of Dowland’s seminal consort collection LoST (1604) or in song form, as ‘Flow my teares’ from 2nd Booke (1600). ...
The ‘English’ version
Although it is by no means a certainty, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that a G minor setting preserved in a number of English manuscript sources may have originally emanated from Dowland himself. ... 11 bears Dowland’s signature (although not alongside any of the ‘Lachrimae’ settings) whilst Board is thought to be connected with Dowland’s teaching activities and contains some autograph material. ... Since this source includes five pieces signed by Dowland and is thought to have belonged to a student of his, it seems plausible that this version may be another of his own creation. ... ) However, Dowland’s famous complaint in the following year that his pieces had been ‘lately printed without my knowledge, falce and unperfect’, whether musically or financially motivated, implicitly suggests that there was at least one ‘approved’ version in circulation which stemmed directly from the composer. ... Either (or neither) lute setting might be Dowland’s original, with no convincing reason to prefer one over the other.
The English lute settings abroad
As has already been stated, Dowland’s frequent travelling and his fame as a performer resulted in a wide dissemination of his works overseas. Peter Holman has suggested that the 5-part consort version of the ‘Lachrimae’ pavan in Kassel is a pre-publication copy of the LoST version, perhaps circulated by Dowland around 1594-5 when he was in the service of Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse (1572-1632), and there is no reason to suppose that his lute pieces were not similarly distributed. ... Montbuysson was based at Kassel from 1598 to 1627, where he might well have encountered (either in manuscript or performance) English versions of the piece stemming from Dowland himself (who had been employed there in 1594). ...
An early example of the exploitation of this model stems from none other than Dowland himself. ... Craig Monson has convincingly argued that a similar creative process resulted in ‘Mr Dowland’s Lachrimae’, a D minor consort setting attributed to William Wigthorpe, as well as a consort-song version of ‘Sorrow stay’ in the same source; both appear to be based upon the respective vocal parts printed in 2nd Booke with inner parts added later. ... The latter is particularly interesting since, beyond the opening tetrachord descent, its ‘melody’ bears little resemblance to that of either the early lute version or either of Dowland’s published versions. ... Dowland, of course, was in Nuremburg in 1595, so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that this piece may have originated from him in some sense. ... Our corpus currently contains over 90 settings of Dowland’s pavan and closely-related pieces. ... It should be added that this date is conjectural; Dowland’s signature appears on a loose leaf bound in amongst material dated 1603 and, since the album is roughly chronologically ordered, it probably dates from this time
[2] Robert Spencer, ‘Dowland’s Dance-Songs: Those of his Compositions Which Exist in Two Versions, Songs and Instrumental Dances,’ in (ed. ...
[7] This volume also includes a very free parody of Dowland’s pavan, ‘Fant. ... ), The First Book of Consort Lessons Collected by Thomas Morley 1599 & 1611 (New York: Peters Edition, 1959)
[10] For details, see Margaret Dowling, ‘The Printing of John Dowland’s Second Booke of Songs or Ayres’, The Library, 4th Ser. ...
[15] To give but a few examples, Peter Philips’s ‘1580’, John Johnson’s ‘Delight’, Thomas Morley’s ‘Sacred Ende’ and Richard Allison’s ‘De la Tromba’ pavans can all be found represented in many Continental collections, though none attains the wide spread of ‘Lachrimae’.
Approximate Word count = 5184
Approximate Pages = 20.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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