The Lute Society: Links Lute Interest

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Lute-related news, reviews, and websites

Listen to Gramophone's Concept Album Award 2023 "Battle Cry: She Speaks" with mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and Toby Carr on theorbo.
www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/gramophone-classical-music-awards-2023/concept-album

The Federation of Guitar Societies UK website is linked below. They promote the classical guitar and related instruments and provide a source of help and advice to enthusiasts.
www.federationofguitarsocieties.org.uk/

Lute blog, string shop, and other resources are available on cuerdaspulsadas.com:
www.cuerdaspulsadas.com

An Early Music themed Discord server has been created to bring members of the early music community together and encourage discussion. You can join the server at the link below:
discord.gg/fTsDw8wk5m

Gilbert Isbin is offering free sheet music for download on his website here:
gilbertisbin.com/free-sheet-music/

Note: the Ning Lute group has been discontinued, effective 22 July 2023. The Ning Lute group was previously at:
lutegroup.ning.com/

Lute Tablature at the Library of Congress Music Division
A new bibliography, titled Anthologies of Musical Works in Print and Manuscript from the 15th-17th Centuries in the Library of Congress Music Division, presents an inventory of the Music Division’s holdings with tables of contents and annotations for most entries:
www.loc.gov/static/research-centers/performing-arts/documents/Anthologies-Final-Bibliography.pdf

An accompanying research guide provides discussions about and highlights from this unique body of materials, emphasizing matters of provenance, cataloging, music publishers, online resources and bibliography, and how the Music Division's collection historically parallels the total output of anthology sources:
guides.loc.gov/music-anthologies/introduction

University of Edinburgh has digitised a recently acquired lute manuscript of 1620. The full volume can be found here:
images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/view/search?search=SUBMIT&cat=0&q=937452169&QuickSearchA=QuickSearchA&sort=work_shelfmark%2Csequence%2Cwork_source_page_no%2Cwork_subset_index&pgs=250

There are additional shots of the bindings here:
images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/view/search?q=work_shelfmark=Coll-2073%20AND%20work_source_page_no=Bindings%20LIMIT:UoEgal~5~5&sort=work_shelfmark,sequence,work_source_page_no,work_subset_index

And the Catalogue entry is available here:
Collection: Early seventeenth-century manuscript of Italian and French lute music in French tablature, c.1620 | University of Edinburgh Archive and Manuscript Collections archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/87372

Victor recordings from the Library of Congress:
www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:carlino,+william

www.loc.gov/collections/national-jukebox/?q=lute

Victor recordings from Discography of American Historical Recordings & UC Santa Barbara Library
adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/209169/Scholander_Torkel

From the "El dulce trato hablando: la música de Alonso Mudarra" program, an anonymous sonnet, set to music by the vihuelist Alonso Mudarra and published in Seville in 1546.
A. Mudarra - Si por amar, el hombre - Maria Cristina Kiehr, sop. - Ariel Abramovich, vihuela de mano
youtu.be/LziqKtfxRdM

Dr. Sebastian Kirsch’s PhD Dissertation ‘The Long Lives of Old Lutes’ which was approved by the University of Leipzig summa cum laude.

The text is in English and is free to download here:
Qucosa - Leipzig: The Long Lives of Old Lutes
ul.qucosa.de/landing-page/?tx_dlf%5bid%5d=https%3A%2F%2Ful.qucosa.de%2Fapi%2Fqucosa%253A86364%2Fmets

From the abstract: ‘This study examines the object biographies of musical instruments and the function of age in the cultural and material history of the lute. It follows the central question of why old instruments were valued more greatly than new ones and what measures had to be executed to adapt the objects to the ever-changing musical style. [The dissertation’s] multivalent approach enhances the understanding of the general dynamics of commodities as status symbols, object biographies, and functional objects and connects them to the material and cultural history of objects using the lute as a case study’.

A scan of the Pickering lute book is available for free download at the link below:
drive.google.com/file/d/1VnA0zFeaQezaBOhNTGifgDqwMKlxyMFI/view