Anthony Holborne – Five lute pieces arranged for guitar by Brian Jeffery, as a digital download (pdf)

Anthony Holborne’s five pieces presented here were originally composed for the lute, and have here been transcribed for the guitar by Brian Jeffery from the original tablature.

Contents, all of them dances:

• Pavane: The Countess of Pembroke’s Paradise
• Galliard
• Coranto: As it fell on a holy eve
• Coranto: Heigh ho holiday
• Alman: The Night Watch

Antony Holborne, a gentleman at the court of Elizabeth I, composed for many different instruments. Of all Elizabethan composers, he would have been the first to approve of the transcription of his pieces for other instruments such as the guitar.

Two of his pavanes bear the name of Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney: her “Funerals”, a sad piece written on her bereavements, and her Paradise printed here. The poet Edmund Spenser was also in the Countess of Pembroke’s circle; and the two corantos printed here bear names which are consecutive lines from Spenser’s The Shepherd’s Calendar:
It fell upon a holy eve,
Heigh ho holiday.
Why the alman is called The Night Watch, though, is still unknown.

This collection is one of a series of seven titles of lute music arranged for guitar by Brian Jeffery.

First published by Tecla in 1995.

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Copyright 2008 by Tecla Editions. Errors and omissions excepted.