[MR] BBC: John Dowland and the Elizabethan Lute

[Garth Groff via Atlantia]

Noble Friends, Especially Bards:

O.K. music fans, today is "Boss Bitter Ballad Time". BBC Culture is 
offering a brief illustrated feature about the Elizabethan musician John 
Dowland. He popularized the inexpensive lute as an accompaniment to 
vocals, and published many of his songs as sheet music with both vocal 
and lute parts. Dowland's music is melancholy, usually syrupy love 
songs, but they . . . uh . . . tuned into a sentimental thread that ran 
through Elizabethan society. And that thread is still with us in popular 
music today. The article compares Dowland to Ed Sheeran. Not being into 
popular music, I haven't the faintest idea of who Mr. Sheeran is, but 
who can forget the Beatles' YESTERDAY? But hey, the Portugese have 
"fado" music, which is just as sentimental.

Anyway, the article is a worthy read for the Elizabethan cultural . . . 
um . . . notes: 
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170801-the-ed-sheeran-of-16th-century-england

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Who Sometimes Dodges Rocks When He Tries to Sing, or Pun