Thesis submission ID 978 | created
| last updated
Róisín O'Grady, Selected vocal repertoire from the Dallis and Ballet lute manuscripts : a singer's perspective
Volumes, pp.: 1 vol (ix, 149pp.) + 1 CD
Supervisor(s): Denise Neary
Repository (online): https://www.tara.tcd.ie/items/88c79874-75c2-473d-9b46-9381ecd4479d
Repository (hard copy): Royal Irish Academy of Music Library
General specialism: Musicology: Performance Studies
Historical timeframe: 16th century
Key terms, concepts: Performance studies; Manuscript studies
Key terms, persons: Thomas Dallis; William Ballet
Key terms, places: England
Key terms, institutions: Trinity College Dublin
Key terms, genres, instruments: Lute songs
Abstract:
The Dallis and Ballet Lute Books housed at Trinity College Dublin are two of the finest examples of music collections from sixteenth-century England. The lute books were compiled during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Dallis Lute Book, which was bound together with the Dublin Virginal manuscript in the late seventeenth century, contains English and European pavans, galliards, psalm settings and lute songs from the 1560s to the 1580s. The Ballet Lute Book comprises two manuscripts: one that was associated with William Ballet and a second unrelated manuscript. Both contain settings of many popular late-sixteenth-century dance and broadside ballad tunes.
Research in relation to these manuscripts was undertaken by John M. Ward in the 1960s, including a detailed account of the contents and physical description. In 1996, Christopher Goodwin transcribed and edited nineteen songs from the Dallis Lute Book. In 1840, William Chappell edited some songs from the Ballet Lute Book in A Collection of English National Airs and Claude Simpson writes about ballads from the same book in The British Broadside Ballad and its Music (1966). Previous work has been focused on presenting songs in modern editions but without any performance exploration of the vocal repertoire from a modern singer’s viewpoint. Much has been written about historically informed performance from this period, including writings by Robert Toft on the role the text plays in influencing the interpretation and performance of the lute song.
This thesis addresses the lack of scholarship on vocal performance considerations for selected songs from the Dallis and Ballet manuscripts and the approach a modern singer might take in implementing the teachings of sixteenth-century writers regarding text interpretation. The thesis places the manuscripts in the social, political and musical background of sixteenth-century England. It describes the roles that music and the lute played during the Elizabethan period and the varying song genres that are present in the manuscripts. It illustrates how the text was the primary driver for interpretation and how singers from the period approached this concept. An examination of the original manuscripts is undertaken in relation to the selected songs and are then compared to modern editions. An original interpretation of the text for each song is outlined, and the result of this process is recorded for voice and lute.
Róisín O'Grady, Selected vocal repertoire from the Dallis and Ballet lute manuscripts : a singer's perspective
DMusPerf, Royal Irish Academy of Music, 2026
Volumes, pp.: 1 vol (ix, 149pp.) + 1 CD
Supervisor(s): Denise Neary
Repository (online): https://www.tara.tcd.ie/items/88c79874-75c2-473d-9b46-9381ecd4479d
Repository (hard copy): Royal Irish Academy of Music Library
General specialism: Musicology: Performance Studies
Historical timeframe: 16th century
Key terms, concepts: Performance studies; Manuscript studies
Key terms, persons: Thomas Dallis; William Ballet
Key terms, places: England
Key terms, institutions: Trinity College Dublin
Key terms, genres, instruments: Lute songs
Abstract:
The Dallis and Ballet Lute Books housed at Trinity College Dublin are two of the finest examples of music collections from sixteenth-century England. The lute books were compiled during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Dallis Lute Book, which was bound together with the Dublin Virginal manuscript in the late seventeenth century, contains English and European pavans, galliards, psalm settings and lute songs from the 1560s to the 1580s. The Ballet Lute Book comprises two manuscripts: one that was associated with William Ballet and a second unrelated manuscript. Both contain settings of many popular late-sixteenth-century dance and broadside ballad tunes.
Research in relation to these manuscripts was undertaken by John M. Ward in the 1960s, including a detailed account of the contents and physical description. In 1996, Christopher Goodwin transcribed and edited nineteen songs from the Dallis Lute Book. In 1840, William Chappell edited some songs from the Ballet Lute Book in A Collection of English National Airs and Claude Simpson writes about ballads from the same book in The British Broadside Ballad and its Music (1966). Previous work has been focused on presenting songs in modern editions but without any performance exploration of the vocal repertoire from a modern singer’s viewpoint. Much has been written about historically informed performance from this period, including writings by Robert Toft on the role the text plays in influencing the interpretation and performance of the lute song.
This thesis addresses the lack of scholarship on vocal performance considerations for selected songs from the Dallis and Ballet manuscripts and the approach a modern singer might take in implementing the teachings of sixteenth-century writers regarding text interpretation. The thesis places the manuscripts in the social, political and musical background of sixteenth-century England. It describes the roles that music and the lute played during the Elizabethan period and the varying song genres that are present in the manuscripts. It illustrates how the text was the primary driver for interpretation and how singers from the period approached this concept. An examination of the original manuscripts is undertaken in relation to the selected songs and are then compared to modern editions. An original interpretation of the text for each song is outlined, and the result of this process is recorded for voice and lute.
Thesis submission ID 978