Anthony de Countie, [1] also called Anthony Conti, Anthony de Conti and Anthony de County, [2] (died 1579), was a Renaissance composer and lutenist, active in the 16th century at the Tudor court in England, and one of the principal lutenists of the Elizabethan era.
According to David Lasocki, Anthony de Countie may have been a Spanish musician of Jewish origin, but he is more likely to have been an Italian because he had an Italian wife, Lucretia, and he lived with another Italian, Francis Jetto, between 1565 and 1571. [2]
Anthony de Countie was employed as a lutenist at the English court from 1550 to 1579. [1] [2] He occupied the post of "royal lewter" during the successive reigns of three sovereigns of the House of Tudor, namely Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, though there is a period (1557–1564) during which his movements are not accounted for. [2] The Elizabethan court could boast of numerous musicians during the 1560s and 1570s, but only de Countie is specifically identified as a lutenist. [1] [2] [3] He is also, perhaps mistakenly, listed among the players of the virginals. [2]
At Anthony de Countie's death in 1579, John Johnson was engaged to replace him as "royal lewter", [1] [4] thanks to the backing of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. [5]
No music has survived which can be attributed to de Countie with certainty. [2] [3]
John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe", "Now o now I needs must part" and "In darkness let me dwell". His instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century's early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists.
A lute is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
Francesco Canova da Milano was an Italian lutenist and composer. He was born in Monza, near Milan, and worked for the papal court for almost all of his career. Francesco was heralded throughout Europe as the foremost lute composer of his time. More of his music is preserved than of any other lutenist of the period, and his work continued to influence composers for more than a century after his death.
A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the 16th and 17th centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could consist of the same or a variety of instruments. Consort music enjoyed considerable popularity at court and in the households of the wealthy in the Elizabethan era, and many pieces were written for consorts by the major composers of the period. In the Baroque era, consort music was absorbed into chamber music.
Robert Johnson was an English composer and lutenist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean eras. He is sometimes called "Robert Johnson II" to distinguish him from an earlier Scottish composer. Johnson worked with William Shakespeare providing music for some of his later plays.
Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger was an Austrian-Italian virtuoso performer and composer of the early Baroque period. A prolific and highly original composer, Kapsberger is chiefly remembered today for his lute and theorbo (chitarrone) music, which was seminal in the development of these as solo instruments.
Paul Raymond O'Dette is an American lutenist, conductor, and musicologist specializing in early music.
Philip van Wilder was a Dutch lutenist and composer, active in England.
James Tyler was a 20th-century American lutenist, banjoist, guitarist, composer, musicologist and author, who helped pioneer an early music revival with more than 60 recordings.
The Harp Consort is an international early music ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King, specialising in Baroque opera, early dance-music, and historical World Music.
"Flow, my tears" is a lute song by the accomplished lutenist and composer John Dowland (1563–1626). Originally composed as an instrumental under the name "Lachrimae pavane" in 1596, it is Dowland's most famous ayre, and became his signature song, literally as well as metaphorically: he would occasionally sign his name "Jo: dolandi de Lachrimae".
Daniel Bacheler, also variously spelt Bachiler, Batchiler or Batchelar, was an English lutenist and composer. Of all the English lutenist-composers, he is now credited as probably being the most successful in his own lifetime.
Nicolas Vallet was a French lutenist and composer who emigrated to the Dutch Republic.
Charles Mouton was a French lutenist and composer.
Early music of Britain and Ireland, from the earliest recorded times until the beginnings of the Baroque in the 17th century, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite. Each of the major nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales retained unique forms of music and of instrumentation, but British music was highly influenced by continental developments, while British composers made an important contribution to many of the major movements in early music in Europe, including the polyphony of the Ars Nova and laid some of the foundations of later national and international classical music. Musicians from the British Isles also developed some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic votive antiphons, and the carol in the medieval era and English madrigals, lute ayres, and masques in the Renaissance era, which would lead to the development of English language opera at the height of the Baroque in the 18th century.
Jakob Lindberg is a Swedish lutenist, performing solo, in small and large ensembles, and also directing operas, using instruments of the lute and guitar families. He is known for the first ever recording of the Complete Solo Lute Music of John Dowland as well as for recording music never before recorded, with repertoire dating back to the Renaissance period.
Court music in Scotland is all music associated with the Royal Court of Scotland, between its origins in the tenth century, until its effective dissolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the Union of Crowns 1603 and Acts of Union 1707.
Sir Edward Paston (1550–1630), second son of Sir Thomas Paston, was a Catholic gentleman of Norfolk, a poet, and amateur musician living in the reign of Elizabeth I. He is an important figure in the musical history of England, his love of music driving him to acquire and copy musical manuscripts from some of the most important composers of the Renaissance, resulting in a unique performing collection of 16th-century house music that included works by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, John Taverner, and Orlando di Lasso. He was especially interested in Byrd, and one of his books is the largest source of consort songs by that composer. Paston played the lute, creating a wide range of vocal settings and accompanying tablatures in partbooks that are still obtainable. As a young man he travelled extensively in Spain, being influenced by the Spanish form of tablature, as seen in his partbooks, rather than the generally used French form.
Shakespeare Songs is a 1967 LP album of Elizabethan songs which is one of the most celebrated recordings of the countertenor Alfred Deller. Deller is accompanied by lutenist Desmond Dupré and the Deller Consort, Philip Todd and Max Worthley tenors, Maurice Bevan baritone.
Ian Harwood was a lutenist, musical instrument maker and teacher.