Today’s quotes are from the writing of Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586), the ideal (or idealized) Elizabethan courtier who left the world far too soon but left us with some eminently singable verse. Sidney was preoccupied with the rhythmical meter of poetry and, although there are no surviving song settings in which the music […]
After fourteen years of sharing a panoply of Unquiet Thoughts, we pause to reflect on some of the major themes running through our series of quotations and essays. The primary focus of this series has always been to highlight our work in preserving the essence of early music in our modern age, and pointing out […]
We are pleased to announce that “Orpheus with his lute” from the album Shakespeare’s Lutebook on the Prima Classic label is now available for streaming and download. Shakespeare’s play, The Famous History of The Live [sic] of King Henry the Eighth was published in the First Folio in 1623. Current scholarship reveals the original title of the play may have been […]
We are pleased to announce that Kemp’s Jig from the album Shakespeare’s Lutebook on the Prima Classic label is now available for streaming and download. For nearly fourteen years now, our blog has been a freely accessible source of historical information, commentary on old music in a brave new world, informed opinion, and most likely loads of cut-and-paste text […]
Our new recording of “Greensleeves” from the album Shakespeare’s Lutebook on the Prima Classic label is now available for streaming and download. “Greensleeves” is a familiar and enduring song that is quite likely the first tune that comes to the mind of a non-specialist when the term “Renaissance” is bandied about. Like most other historical […]
While trying to make sense of the ever-shifting state of the world this week, we take a few moments to share more quotations drawn from the Mignarda reading list. As usual, we present bits of flotsam from the constant research that informs our approach to historical music and poetry, concluding with a modicum of social […]
We are pleased to announce the release of our long-awaited recording of English lute songs, available as of today, April 10, 2021. Unquiet Thoughts, Mignarda’s 14th album, is the capstone of decades of insight into the songs of John Dowland and his peers. Having edited and published Dowland’s complete music for voice & lute in […]
[We are re-visiting this pertinent post from February 2011 that was not originally part of our Saturday morning quotes series.] One of our earliest posts on this blog had to do with the modern listener’s receptiveness to old music in general and lute music in particular. We mentioned the question of balancing voice and lute, […]
“Hauing in forren parts met diuers Lute-lessons of my composition, publisht by strangers without my name or approbation; I thought it much more conuenient, that my labours should passe forth vnder mine owne allowance, receiuing from me their last foile and polishment; for which consideration I haue vndergone this long and troublesome work, wherein I […]
This post begins our fourth year of Saturday morning quotes, a weekly chore we perform both with a sense of responsibility and in a spirit of sharing. We are constantly reminded that our perspective is quite unique in that we are committed to maintaining a simpler brand of existence in the face of an increasing dependence on […]
Unquiet Thoughts 