This article is to appear in the Anglo/Spanish early music magazine Goldberg (http://www.goldbergweb.com/en/) at some point in the near future.

the lute, the lute player, the music, the musician

THE LUTE

Lute players are in a strange situation. Here we are, devoting our time and energy and passion to an instrument which today in the West occupies a position of cultural obscurity, but which is of central and key importance to musical history. It is hard for us to imagine that Francesco Canova da Milano (1497-1543), John Dowland (1563-1626) and Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750), to mention our three best-known (or perhaps I should say least obscure) musical heroes, were writing for an instrument which occupied a position of importance similar to the piano in the nineteenth century -- for centuries, the lute was simply the instrument for solo music, and the instrument to accompany the human voice. More than that, the instrument was firmly associated, even identified with the ancient Greek lyre and kithara. The importance of this association is inestimable. I will not attempt here to summarize the rich and complex history of the lute. This information is now readily available, thanks to the recent, meticulously researched and utterly fascinating A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance, by Douglas Alton Smith (published by The Lute Society of America, 2002, and availble from http://www.lutesocietyofamerica.org). For a riveting and complex narrative, I particularly recommend the chapters on the lute's origins in antiquity, and its dissemination in the middle ages.

But I would like to point out a few facts and implications arising from this history that are perhaps not often considered, and which shed light on the sort of heritage that we are dealing with when we take up the lute (throughout, I am much indebted to Dr. Smith's account):

Organologically speaking, of course, the lute came to the West from central Asia. But culturally, the heritage was classical. In the West, from Petrarch and Boccaccio until the middle of the eighteenth century -- some 400 years -- the lute was the lyre of Mercury, Apollo, Orpheus, Arion, and Amphion. It was not likened to the lyre, it was the lyre. It is important for us to understand the significance of these associations. To quote Smith: During the Renaissance the lute became a poet's symbol for music, dance, and poetry on the basis of its association with Apollonian and Orphic Legend. The Renaissance was of course the era when European humanists sought to regenerate their culture according to ancient models" (p. 2). Again, on the Greek myths involving the lyre or kithara: All of these myths have in common the unique power of music to work wonders and the association of the lyre or kithara with the gods. Throughout the European Renaissance and well into the Baroque era, theorists and musicians who read the classics were convinced that ancient music had magical powers that modern music lacked, and this conviction led to repeated efforts to revive the art of Apollo and Orpheus. . . . In virtually every case where a Renaissance or Baroque poet celebrated a contemporary lutenist, he compared him to Apollo, Mercury, Orpheus, Arion, or Amphion (p. 4). So the renaissance lute was thought of as having the power to work wonders on those who heard it or played it: it is clear that the lutenist was in the business of stirring the listener's soul -- moving the listener to action, either warlike or peaceable, and to contemplation, moral or divine. It is also clear that music and poetry (and religion for that matter) were central to life, rather than peripheral, as they are often thought of now. Clearly this has implications for understanding the music we play. If we choose to ignore these implications, our understanding will be the poorer, as will, I believe, the musical message we transmit.

A fact which is perhaps not well-known is that in eighth-century Baghdad (600 years before Petrarch and Boccaccio!), the lute was already thought of as having ancient Greek origins, and that Arabian musical treatises bear the strong influence of ancient Greek thought (Smith, p. 8). It is interesting to speculate about the extent to which this renaissance Italian view was mediated by medieval Arabic thought. In any case, we're dealing with many hundreds of years of cultural association between the lute and the lyre.

The influence of middle Eastern music, via the Muslim presence in Spain and Sicily in the middle ages, is well known. The first European lutenists learned their craft from Muslim masters, and, presumably at first, they played in the same musical style. This influence repercussed for centuries and throughout Europe as playing techniques evolved. (Indeed, the influence is still discernible.) But another interesting fact is that, very early on, the Muslim lutenist/singers in present-day Spain were influenced by Spanish music, setting Arabic poetry to native melodies (Smith, pp. 19-20). The East-West musical influences were complex and multidirectional.

The lute's rich history, with all of its associations and implications, is a timely reminder that the lute is a quintessential symbol of East meeting West. The renaissance lute, which a few of us devote our time, energy, and passion to, is an equal product of Muslim and Christian cultures, closely intertwined one with another, and intermingled with the heritage of Classical antiquity, a heritage looked to by medieval Muslims and renaissance Christians alike. Today, in the West, the lute is in the extreme cultural margins. In the Middle East, by contrast, it continues to flourish. When I perform on the lute, I cannot help but think that it is, and should be, a symbol of peace and mutual understanding between cultures. Is it relevant or useful -- in this society which marginalizes the arts, prioritizes material wealth, and polarizes religions -- to play the lute, a now obscure and forgotten instrument? The answer, of course, is YES. The music has peaceful and profound qualities which are much needed as a counterbalance to the chaos and confusion. The transmission of these qualities is something I believe strongly in doing, and it happens on the level of individual listeners and players. Music can and should be a bridge between individuals and between societies.

THE LUTE PLAYER

How did I come to the lute? Like most modern-day lutenists, I came to it through the guitar. From the age of six to the age of 22, I played the guitar seriously, though I chose to study English and philosophy rather than music at university, and was mainly self-taught. Like many guitarists, I was drawn particularly to transcriptions of lute music, which exist in profusion in the guitar repertoire. At this stage, I saw no particular reason to play these pieces on the instrument for which they were written, as my only experiences of hearing the lute came from recordings made relatively early in the instrument's revival, before accurate copies of historical lutes were readily available, and before players had widely begun experimenting with historical playing techniques. The instrument on these recordings had more in common with the modern guitar than with the renaissance lute, and the actual sound did not appear to me to have any advantage over the sound of the modern guitar. In short, the lute did not particularly excite my imagination.

Then one day in the mid 1980s, everything changed. I was driving a car (in the American Midwest, where I grew up), and the radio was playing. Suddenly I heard something which made me stop the car to listen. It sounded rather like an exceptionally sweet harp. But on closer listening it was obvious that the instrument had stopped strings. I concluded that it must be a lute, but it was quite unlike any lute I'd heard hitherto. It turned out to be a track from Jakob Lindberg's 1983 LP of French lute music by Ballard, Vallet, Gaultier and Gallot. Some of this record is now available on CD (BIS CD-201), but sadly not including the pieces by Ballard and Vallet, which first lit the fire in me. This was the first time I'd heard the relatively new practice of playing on historically constructed instruments (in this case, by the pioneering maker Michael Lowe), using historical techniques to produce the sound (i.e., without fingernails). If this was what the lute could sound like, I saw that it was well worth pursuing. It was a different sound world from that of the guitar.

Thanks to the efforts and encouragement of key friends, teachers, and family members, I was able to get an instrument and to teach myself to play it, using as my aural models the recordings of Jakob Lindberg and Paul O'Dette (which I was now acquiring and devouring avidly), photographs of these two players' right-hand positions, sixteenth-century paintings, and, later, lute treatises. After four months of working on my own, I sent an audition tape to the Royal College of Music in London, because I wanted to study with the man whose playing first inspired me. On the basis of the audition tape, the College accepted me (I think on the basis of promise rather than actual accomplishment!), and I moved to London, where I've been ever since. But there was a delay of almost a year before I could go to London to take up the place, and I wanted to use that time to make a good start. So Jakob Lindberg generously provided me with a set of first lute lessons in the form of a handwritten letter. I worked from this during that time, and gave myself a reasonable foundation.

Then, sixteen years ago, I came to London, where I spent two years as a postgraduate student at the Royal College, forming friendships and making contacts which formed the basis of my career in England. By the second year, I was starting to get work, and before I knew it I'd settled in England.

Early experiences of performing and recording were with The Lute Group (Christopher Wilson), The Dowland Consort (Jakob Lindberg) and The Rose Consort of Viols. Very soon, work as a continuo player followed, and for a few years I found myself doing the thing that virtually all professional lute players do: making a living as a theorbo player. But as I explored the rich and deep vein of the sixteenth-century lute repertoire in my spare time, three facts became obvious. Firstly, here was a body of music that held deep attraction for me, and much of which had not been touched. Secondly, the music was extremely demanding, and there was no chance of my doing it any kind of justice in between theorbo-thrashings. I have huge admiration, by the way, for those fine players who can play the renaissance lute well despite spending most of their time playing baroque music in ensembles, which can have a detrimental effect on ones ability to play the renaissance lute. Thirdly, it suits me temperamentally to limit my focus, and not to spread myself too thin. With all of these things in mind, I reluctantly gave up continuo work and baroque music in general (much as I love it), and chose to focus on the renaissance lute. (In reality, I now play medieval, renaissance and early baroque music as a soloist and accompanist on lutes, citterns, bandoras, vihuelas, early guitars, and occasionally viols. So I don't suppose I could be said to be overspecializing!) Since that time, I have been happily and rewardingly exploring the renaissance repertoire at a level of depth which would have been impossible if I had continued as a lute generalist.

THE MUSIC (a selected discography)

[insert thumbnail image of Holborne CD cover here]

In the solo realm, I have been exploring some of the repertoire that insterests me most. These explorations have taken the form of a series of CDs. The more I explore areas of particular interest, the more other worlds for possible exploration open up. The renaissance lute repertoire truly is a rich vein. The approach I've taken has been to tackle areas that are undeservedly neglected, and to try new approaches where possible. The reasoning behind this is that John Dowland and Francesco da Milano get plenty of attention from other players, and deservedly so. But what about Dentice, Severino, Bakfark, and the famous anon.? I'm interested in exploring music that is relatively unexplored, but which, I believe strongly, is well worth exploring. Record companies have usually favoured single composer recordings. My first disc (recorded 1996-97), Holburns Passion (ASV CD GAU 173), took this approach. This disc is an introduction to the solo lute, cittern and bandora music of Anthony Holborne.

[insert thumbnail image of Bakfark/Waissel CD cover here]

My second disc (recorded 1998), the first of two lute CDs on Robert Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile label, was a two-composer CD (black cow: lute music by Valentin Bakfark and Matthus Waissel, DGM 9906). (I had been a fan of Robert Fripp's guitar playing for twenty years, and I remain a fan today.) This disc still follows the principle of basing a recording around individual composers, rather than around some other organizing principle, but it capitalizes on the strong contrasts between Waissel's simple and atmospheric Polish Dances and Bakfark's sophisticated and masterful intabulations and fantasias, juxtaposing one against the other.

The Bakfark/Waissel project awakened my interest in the whole area of intabulations. To explain briefly: three main categories of lute music existed in the sixteenth century: 1) intabulations (arrangements of sacred or secular vocal music), 2) dances, and 3) fantasias (and other freely composed forms). Intabulations are the most heavily represented of the three categories in the original sources, but also the least performed and recorded today. I had until that point done what most other players do, namely, to place an occasional intabulation or two into my solo programmes, choosing from the few relatively famous ones (Narvez's celebrated Mille regres intabulation, for instance). Working on Bakfark's intabulations opened my eyes to the quality of this unexplored area of the repertoire. It also led to much speculation on my part about the reasons why intabulations have been largely ignored in the past. I wrote about these possible reasons in the programme notes to my third CD, about which more below. To quote from that note:

Why have we avoided intabulations until now? They are, after all, the meat and potatoes of the sixteenth-century lutenist's activity. Probably it is because: 1) they are difficult technically; 2) they have, in our culture of originality, perhaps been thought of as somehow derivative (not unlike piano reductions of orchestral scores in the nineteenth century); and 3) the vocal originals are less well-known among lutenists and audiences today, which removes the music from its original context.

Needless to say, I went on to argue that none of these reasons is particularly convincing to me. One of the features of intabulations which attracted me was the substantiality of the music. In a typical lute recital, pieces range in length from one to six minutes. Bakfark's intabulation of Josquin's four-part Qui habitat in adjutorio lasts fifteen and a half minutes on my CD, and I think that these more extended pieces are a welcome addition to our repertoire. The best intabulations are superb instrumental transformations of superb vocal originals, and well worth playing and listening to. They also provide a way into a vocal approach to the lute. It is well-known that in the renaissance, an instrumentalist's ideal was to emulate the human voice. It is also clear that a large body of lute fantasias is written in a motet style; this is vocal counterpoint without words. In additon, it is becoming increasingly clear that the boundary between intabulation and fantasia is blurry. More and more fantasias are being discovered which are in fact intabulations or parody-fantasias (parody-fantasias are fantasias which make extensive reference to, and elaboration upon, vocal pieces). Who knows how many more fantasias make hitherto unnoticed reference to vocal pieces? Thus a study of intabulations gives us useful information about compositional practices. Of course preparing to perform an intabulation requires close study of the vocal original (and preferably also listening to it), in order to determine where the musical lines are going, and to prevent a two-dimensional, merely chordal interpretation.

[insert thumbnail image of Josquin CD cover here]

This leads me to my third solo CD (recorded 1999), entitled Josquin des Prez: sixteenth-century lute settings (DGM 0006), in which I was allowed to express my interest in the subject of intabulations, and in undeservedly neglected music, and to delve more deeply into the whole subject of vocal music. This CD was also a way to combine the single-composer approach with a wide range of pieces from many different countries and in many different styles, since intabulations of Josquin were created over a period of a hundred years, and throughout Europe. This CD, which I believe is the first lute CD to consist entirely of intabulations, and also the first devoted entirely to the great Josquin des Prez, includes settings by sixteenth-century lutenists from Germany, Hungary, Italy, France and Spain. So on the level of the vocal original, it is a single-composer CD, but on the level of the instrumental arrangement, it is a multi-composer, multi-national CD. This project remains the one closest to my heart, and is, from the point of view of making an original contribution to the field, the project I am most proud of.

[insert thumbnail image of Jane Pickeringe CD cover here]

For my fourth CD (recorded 2001), I adopted another relatively unusual approach, seeking to find a unifying principle other than the single composer. I based the CD around one important lute manuscript, Jane Pickeringe's Lute Book (Avie 0002), which is, itself, a widely diverse anthology of music which was current in England at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. The marvellous diversity of the manuscript, and the high quality of the music, makes for a highly varied but also unified musical project. The pieces range from the brief Toys, folk tune settings and dances which fill the blank spaces in the manuscript, to substantial pavans and fantasias. Focussing on a single source gives a deeper insight into the individual character of individual important manuscripts in a way that picking and choosing music from diverse sources does not provide. Thus, the Pickeringe project was a wonderful learning experience.

[insert thumbnail image of The Art of the Lute Player CD cover here]

The fifth solo CD (Avie 0011) is a compilation of pieces from the now deleted Holborne, Bakfark/Waissel and Josquin discs, as well as from two other deleted CDs of Luis Miln and Alonso Mudarra songs and solos (all of these are still available direct from discs@heringman.com, or through http://www.heringman.com/discography.htm).

Currently, I am in the final stages of recording another single-manuscript CD, due for release on Avie in May 2004: The Siena Lute Book explores one of the richest and most important of Italian lute manuscripts. [This CD is now available as AVIE 0036.]

In the preparation of all of these project, I have relied on generous expert help and advice from leading scholars, including John Robinson, Peter Kiraly, David Fallows, Lynda Sayce, Arthur Ness, and John Griffiths. To all of them, I am grateful.

[insert thumbnail images of Mudarra and Milan CD covers here]

Another rewarding area of exploration has been the lute song. With the mezzo-soprano Catherine King, I have performed and recorded large selections from Alonso Mudarra's 1546 vihuela book (ASV CD GAU 162, recorded 1995-96), and from Luis Miln's marvellous collection of 1536 (ASV CD GAU 183, recorded 1997). This is splendid music, and it remains a dream to go back and explore more of Miln's fantasias, in particular.

[insert thumbnail images of Airs de Cour and Renaissance Songbook CD covers here]

With Catherine King and Charles Daniels, I have had the pleasure of recording and performing French Airs de Cour, both solo songs and dialogues (Linn CKD 089, recorded 1997. This is another highly sophisticated, highly attractive, and relatively neglected area of music. There remain a great many first rate songs which have not been published or performed in modern times. Another disc with King and Daniels which is particularly close to my heart, is called A Renaissance Songbook (Linn CKD 142, recorded 2000), which combines three approaches to Philippe Verdelot's first book of madrigals: the lute song versions of 1536 make up most of the CD, forming its core, but seven of the songs are performed a capella from the original madrigal book of 1533, plus we include sixteenth-century intabulations of six of the songs.

[insert thumbnail images of Virelai's four CDs here]

With the ensemble Virelai, I have made four CDs. Highlights for me include our CD Chansons nouvelles: Parisian chansons and dances c. 1530-1550 (Virgin/Veritas 7243 5 45313 2 3, recorded 1996-97), and, in a new departure, a disc consisting entirely of newly-commissioned settings of renaissance love poetry for voice with renaissance instruments, entitled Sad Steps: New settings of renaissance poems (Riverrun RVRCD62, recorded 2002).

All of these projects have been wonderful learning experiences for me, as have the many recordings and concerts with other groups with whom I've made frequent guest appearances. (For a more complete discography, see http://www.heringman.com/discography.htm.)

THE MUSICIAN

The Alexander Technique is another thread in my life which plays a huge role in my relationship with the lute and with performing. In 1995 (just about the time when I entered the great flurry of making recordings which was to follow), I began to take Alexander Technique lessons, prompted initially by a desire to combine mind and body more satisfactorily than I had succeeded in doing before that time. I sensed that a performer must combine the two in an integrated and unified way, and I sensed that I needed help tackling this problem. The lessons were so much help, and so changed my performing, and my life in general, that I decided to train as an A.T. teacher myself. I'm now nearing the end of a three-year full-time teacher training course in London, and I've already begun to use principles from the Technique in my lute teaching.

I won't attempt here to describe the A.T. in detail. That would be an article in itself. But some of the aspects of the Technique which have direct bearing on musical performance are worth discussing briefly. The Alexander Technique takes the view that the individual is a psychophysical unity, and that any separation of physical and mental is not only unsuccessful but impossible. As a performer, I want to be free to convey my musical intention in a way which is as unencumbered as possible by excess habitual tension or mannerism (or anything else that gets in the way). These habitual responses by means of which we constantly interfere with our own desired ends are both physical and mental. They consist of habits of body and habits of mind. In fact, a physical habit is ultimately a mental one, and a habitual way of thinking is linked to habitual ways of doing. By making the individual aware of his or her habitual patterns of responding to stimuli, the A.T. equips us with the ability to choose to say no to these habitual responses, and to find new means of achieving our ends.

One of the benefits of this training is much greater efficiency in movement, for example, in playing the lute or performing any other task with much less physical tension, using only what is necessary, and no more. A second benefit is greater flexibility of thought, with less reliance on unconscious habitual responses, and therefore greater freedom to choose how to respond (for example, to a piece of music). Thirdly, the Technique gives us greater self-awareness but simultaneously the ability to attend to a wider field of attention (thinking in activity, as it's often called). For instance, as a result of the A.T. work, I am now much better able in a performance situation to attend to maintaining the efficiency of the use of myself -- not using excess tension to play, but also not forgetting to breathe, and not letting habit interfere with allowing my skeleton and postural muscles to support and balance me effortlessly on the chair. But at the same time, I'm better able to attend to perceiving both the structure of the piece of music as a whole, and the individual details. And, along with all of these areas of attention, I'm also better able to allow myself to be aware of the performance space, the audience, and the communication. All of these things come together in my unified field of attention (when it's going well!). In short, the meaning of performance has changed for me. The experience of performance is enriched, because it's no longer about going out there and hoping I don't play too many wrong notes. (It should never be that, of course, but it too often is.) It's about communication between myself and the audience.

The experience of practising the instrument (and teaching it) is also radically changed, because it's no longer about endless repetition of the difficult passages, getting more and more tense in the process. It's obvious to me now that if I practise with tension, using tension to achieve my desired end (which is a creditable performance), that tension will of course become an inbuilt part of the performance. That's a classic example of endgaining -- rushing headlong toward the desired end without paying attention to the means whereby that end is to be gained. So, to break the vicious circle of tension, I now don't attend directly to getting the difficult passages right. I attend instead to the use of myself. If I am practising a piece, and I get to a passage which is too difficult to play, I slow down the speed to the point where the passage becomes playable -- not only playable, but also achievable without tightening excessively. (Our response to difficulty is the fear reflex of tightening our flexor muscles, which of course has the counterproductive effect of making the difficult even more so, because we have to fight and overcome this tension with even more tension.) Any passage of music, even the most difficult, becomes playable at a slow enough speed. If I then take plenty of time, and practise only at speeds where I can play the passages without difficulty and without excess tension, and if I rigorously maintain this practice (which takes a lot of discipline and attention), I then find that I can very gradually increase the speed at which I practise the piece, until, given enough time, I reach the desired speed, but without the undesired inbuilt byproduct of tension.

This way of practising is really a commonsense one; exceptional performers, whether they know about the Alexander Technique or not, tend to proceed in this way. Teaching it is difficult, because most students are in too much of a hurry to get it right as quickly as possible, and unwilling to go slowly or proceed thoughtfully. So the bad habits are built up gradually over time, and we end up with professional musicians who suffer from tension and pain, often to the point where they either give up or start laboriously from the beginning again.

AUTHENTICITY

I have discussed the lute as an instrument, and argued that it is a powerful symbol, and that its music can still have profound relevance today. I have written about my own history as a lute player, and about my own particular approach to its music. Finally, I have discussed some of the insights that the Alexander Technique has helped me to gain about being a musician. For me, the idea of authenticity is a way of tying together these strands. Authenticity is about more than the attempt to reproduce performance practices of another time or place, though such an attempt can contribute to the authenticity of a performance. To me, authenticity is about a balance between two things: on the one hand, it is about being true to the music, which means accepting it on its own terms -- inhabiting it, interrogating it, seeking to understand it for what it is, in its context, rather than imposing on it. On the other hand, authenticity is about being true to oneself, which means finding relevant meaning and relevant enjoyment in the music, and communicating that meaning and that joy. And if the music seems irrelevant or joyless, it is time seek elsewhere for music that speaks to one, because without that relevance and joy, the performance will be devoid of real meaning.