ROBERT JOHNSON alman
Bridget Mermikides presents a piece that’s not only a classic example of the late Renaissance style, but also one that can boast bona fide dramatic credentials.
This Robert Johnson was a Tudor lutenist composer and Shakespeare’s only confirmed musical cohort. Bridget tabs this lovely tune.
Although the classical guitar is a relative newcomer to the family of western ‘classical’ instruments, it has a distant relative (or at least a kindred spirit) in the lute. With a somewhat similar tone, tuning system, shape and being one of the few other instruments with a direct finger-tostring playing technique, it is natural and perhaps inevitable that so much lute music has been adapted to the guitar. Practitioners in the early 20th century were keen to expand and enrich the guitar’s repertoire and give it a body of works by earlier composers: a kind of ‘adopted authenticity’.
Arrangements of lute works by great Baroque and Renaissance composers such as JS Bach, Dowland, Holborne, Weiss and Mudarra are now established pieces in the guitar’s repertoire. In this issue, we will tackle a wonderful lute work by the English Renaissance composer Robert Johnson (circa 1583-1633). Only slightly younger than (and in the same professional circles as) John Dowland (whose Fantasia we tackled in GT274), Johnson was also a lutenist, composer and court musician of great productivity and skill, writing songs for voice, a range of instrumentation and for the theatre.
After completing his apprenticeship at age 21, Johnson became the lutenist (and maintainer of the lute collection) to the new king of England, James I, and then Henry, Prince of Wales. Robert Johnson’s appointments outside of the court involved writing original music for events and the theatre, including plays by a couple of contemporaneous playwrights; Ben Johnson and William Shakespeare. Robert Johnson is, in fact, the only named contemporary composer that we know for certain wrote music for Shakespeare’s plays, through the King’s Men theatrical company. These involved songs to underpin the drama, as well as incidental music, particularly when the candles were changed between acts.
Here I have arranged his beautiful Alman, a simple, melodic and beautifully succinct piece for solo lute (one of the surviving 25-odd written in the early 17th century). It is a very clear representation of his style and the late Renaissance musical era. It is mostly written in two voices, and it’s important to keep these clear, distinct and with a sense of forward flow (regardless of tempo). The tab captions will help maintain this fluidity and, as ever, patient practice is the fastest route to a satisfying performance. This is a wonderful piece to have in one’s repertoire and there is a profundity to playing it and imagining it first performed some 400 years ago in Shakespearean times.
Johnson is the only nAmed contempoRARy composeR thAt we cAn sAy foR ceRtAin wRote music foR shAkespeARe’s plAys