曲目名:两首阿勒芒德舞曲(Two Almaines)
曲目演奏家:朱利安·布里姆(Julian Bream)
作曲:罗伯特·约翰逊(Robert Johnson)
专辑:黄金时代的英国鲁特琴音乐(Golden_Age_of_English_Lute_Music)
详情:Lute Music(鲁特琴音乐)
John Johnson(罗伯特·约翰逊), like most English Court
musicians, probably began his career as a boy serving an apprenticeship to a
player engaged in a great noble house, possibly that of the Earl of Leicester.
This would normally last for seven years, and may have begun as soon as the
early 1560s. One extant indenture, for a lutenist of a later generation, Daniel
Bachelar, records that the boy entered his apprenticeship at the tender age of
seven, and there is nothing to suggest that this was unusual. The system was
essential for any musician of low birth aspiring to a Court post, for it
provided the crucial patronage and personal contacts which would otherwise be
totally out of reach, however prodigious his talent.
In 1577 Johnson entered
Royal service as one of ‘Her Majesty’s Musitians for the three lutes’. Together
with Mathias Mason and Thomas Cardell, appointed around the same time, Johnson
was among the first group of native English players to win the Royal accolade.
The roster of lutenists formally engaged in that capacity by Elizabeth at times
eventually rose as high as six or seven, and more lute players were employed in
other posts, while extras were doubtless taken on as required for special
occasions such as Court masques. Thus Johnson joined the Court just when his
instrument’s time seems to have come.
Johnson’s lute playing must have been
exceptional, but his historical importance resides, of course, in the quality
and quantity of music by him that has come down to us today. While we have a few
fine compositions by native English lutenists before him, John Johnson can
reasonably be regarded as the founder of the school of English lute music of the
‘Golden Age’ which was to culminate in the work of John Dowland (1563-1626).
Johnson absorbed both the prevailing Italianate style and a more
idiosyncratically English taste to produce a substantial body of work of real
distinction. His music is found, almost always anonymously, in manuscripts from
all over Europe, to an extent only matched (and greatly exceeded, it must be
said) by John Dowland’s, yet, as far as we know, John Johnson never left
England.
The forms and idioms of Golden Age lute music were already set when
Johnson entered Royal service. With a few fine exceptions, English lutenists did
not compose elaborate and cerebral contrapuntal fantasias like their Italian
counterparts, nor, apparently, did they have much relish for arranging vocal
music for the lute. The basis of their repertory was dance music, pavans,
galliards and almaines. All these dance-types originated abroad, and many of
them were simply English ‘translations’ of dances known throughout Europe. In
such cases, each dance comprised an instantly recognisable sequence of harmonies
which corresponded in some way to the sequence of steps. The most widespread
were the two types of passamezzo, the ‘antico’ (ancient) one, which the English
called the Passingmeasures Pavan (£ on this recording) and its ‘moderno’
variant, which evolved into the English Quadro Pavan @. Johnson’s settings both
appear to be early works, into whose divisions he has skilfully woven some
distinctively English touches, harking back, perhaps, to an earlier native
tradition of lute-playing.
Johnson’s skill in composing divisions
undoubtedly arose from his experience as a performer. The traditional Italian
practice was for a pair of lutenists to work as a team: the ‘tenorista’ played
the long-held tenor or other lower parts of a well-known song, motet or dance,
while the ‘discantor’ worked up a dazzling display of fast notes in a higher
register. This duetting tradition was adapted by the English into a distinctive
style of ensemble music, and may have partly given rise to the lasting
predilection for sets of ‘divisions upon a ground’ which continued to delight
professional and amateur musicians for a century and a half after Johnson’s
death. The contrapuntal tenor of the Italian tradition was replaced in the
English lute duet by a repeating chord sequence, a harmonic ‘ground’ over which
the ‘treble’ player would play variations of increasing speed and difficulty.
The genre of divisions on a ground was later imitated by players of the viol,
the recorder and, in the seventeenth century, the violin, and became an
immensely important part of the English musical scene.
The English loved
variation techniques of all kinds and almost every sixteenth-century
instrumental composer of note left examples. Johnson was a great master of the
style and his divisions, in both duet and solo works, combine the virtuosity of
the star performer with the skill and dramatic judgement of the experienced
composer. Italian grounds provided the basis for many of his lute duets, such as
the Short Almaine 4 and Rogero 6, both built over versions of the Ruggiero
harmonic pattern, Chi Passa $, which is based on a popular part-song, ‘Chi passa
per questa strada’ or La Vecchia Pavan and its Galliard % & ^, an adaptation
of the well-known Passamezzo la Paganina, first published in 1578. The last of
these, a product of Johnson’s maturity, shows an increasing trend towards
equality between the players, who now share the duties of accompanist and
soloist, as in the Flat Pavan and Galliard 5 & 6. This is Johnson’s
masterpiece in the genre; its strange name comes from the fact that it is in a
minor key which requires flat signs in music notation. It brings to the duet
medium an atmosphere of English melancholy at odds with the normal tradition of
virtuoso display. The same is true of the first of the two Dumps recorded here 5
& ?, both of which use the simplest of grounds, the second shamelessly
revelling in the solo player’s digital dexterity.
Another English tradition
is manifest in the final duet, Goodnight °. This early work is a setting of a
widely-encountered ground that may have originated in a popular song. English
songs and ballad-tunes were a constant source of inspiration to the lutenists of
the Golden Age; Carman’s Whistle 3 was also set for the virginals by William
Byrd while Walsingham ¢ was one of the most popular of all. Many of these tunes
became well known in Europe, brought over by the musicians performing with the
English theatrical troupes which were enormously popular, especially in Germany.
They probably also brought with them Johnson’s solo lute music, such as the
enormously widespread Delight Pavan 1 and the Marigold Pavan &, which, by
contrast, has only survived in a single copy from K?nigsberg on the Baltic,
where English ‘Comoedianten’ are known to have performed regularly.
John
Johnson, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite lutenist, died in 1594, when the Golden Age
school of lutenists was at its zenith. In 1613 the first collection of virginal
music, Parthenia, appeared in print to celebrate the wedding of James I’s
daughter. Alongside music by William Byrd, John Bull and Orlando Gibbons appears
an anonymous Galiardo, which turns out to be a keyboard setting of Johnson’s
Jewel !. So, even though Johnson’s name had been widely forgotten so soon after
his death, his musical influence continued to be felt well beyond the
grave.
Tim Crawford ? 2003