January Lute Challenge 23

The challenge starts on 1st January 2023

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Join me for 12 new pieces this January!

Three times a week in January 2023 I'll upload a new video and provide the music for download. All you'll need is a renaissance lute and plenty of enthusiasm. All the pieces will be playable on a 6course (+) lute, so that the challenge is as accessible as possible.

The challenge is completely free, just sign up below so that you can let everyone know about your progress and stay updated.

I was overwhelmed and inspired by the response last year. We had over 300 lutenists take part in the challenge! Thanks for your emails and messages, I've taken on board the feedback and hope everyone finds this challenge just as much fun. I do hope you all enjoy a month of sharing music together.

Good luck and let me know how you get on,

Alex McCartney

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Day 12

January Lute Challenge Logo

**Apologies, the audio in this video is not up to the usual standard. The microphone had slightly malfunctioned and it makes the lute sound a little bit weird. I hope the video is useful to you nonetheless. You’ve made it to the end of this year’s January Lute Challenge. Congratulations! Thanks so much for taking…

Day 11

January Lute Challenge Logo

Pierre Attaingnant (or Attaignant) (c. 1494 – late 1551 or 1552) was a French music publisher, active in Paris. Attaingnant is considered to be first large-scale publisher of single-impression movable type for music-printing, thus making it possible to print faster and cheaper than predecessors such as Ottaviano Petrucci. Attaingnant is often credited with being the…

Day 10

January Lute Challenge Logo

*Update* I was contacted by Marie who shared some really valuable information about this piece. Marie’s understanding of the context of the pieces composition is invaluable, so I’ve copied it verbatim here: I don’t know whether anyone has already told you that Saphica is not an unmeasured prelude. Instead of being forward-looking, it’s looking back…

Day 9

January Lute Challenge Logo

Hans Judenkönig (also Judenkunig or Judenkünig) (c. 1450 – 4 March 1526) was a German lutenist of the Renaissance. He was born in Schwäbisch Gmünd and died in Vienna. He worked as a lutenist in the vicinity of the University of Vienna and was best known for his two lute books written for the self-teaching…

Day 8

January Lute Challenge Logo

This piece is from the Craus Lute Book housed and looked after by the Austrian National Music Collection (ms 18688). Although we don’t know who composed it, we expect the book to have been collated from about 1540. If you’ve enjoyed the January Lute Challenge, why not share this piece?

Day 7

January Lute Challenge Logo

Cesare Negri (c. 1535 – c. 1605) was an Italian dancer and choreographer. He was nicknamed il Trombone, an ugly or jocular name for someone “who likes to blow his own horn”. Born in Milan, he founded a dance academy there in 1554. He was an active court choreographer for the nobility in Milan. He…

Day 6

January Lute Challenge Logo

Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta (1526/1535 – 1605/1620) was an Italian Renaissance dancing master and a composer or transcriber of dance music. His dance manual Il Ballarino was published in 1581, with a subsequent edition, significantly different, Nobiltà di Dame, printed in 1600 and again after his death in 1630. Both manuals have been printed in…

Day 5

January Lute Challenge Logo

Pierre Attaingnant (or Attaignant) (c. 1494 – late 1551 or 1552) was a French music publisher, active in Paris. Attaingnant is considered to be first large-scale publisher of single-impression movable type for music-printing, thus making it possible to print faster and cheaper than predecessors such as Ottaviano Petrucci. Attaingnant is often credited with being the…

Day 4

January Lute Challenge Logo

Very little is known of John Dowland’s early life, but it is generally thought he was born in London; some sources even put his birth year as 1563. Irish historian W. H. Grattan Flood claimed that he was born in Dalkey, near Dublin, but no corroborating evidence has ever been found either for that or…

Day 3

January Lute Challenge Logo

This tune appears in William Ballet’s Lute Book of 1594, and a Scottish version in the Rowallan Manuscript (c. 1629) under the title “Maggie Ramsay.” John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900) believes Scottish sources predate English ones, and says that the William Ballet tune is merely an English version of the Rowallan one (believing the…

Day 2

January Lute Challenge Logo

Cesare Negri (c. 1535 – c. 1605) was an Italian dancer and choreographer. He was nicknamed il Trombone, an ugly or jocular name for someone “who likes to blow his own horn”. Born in Milan, he founded a dance academy there in 1554. He was an active court choreographer for the nobility in Milan. He…

Day 1

January Lute Challenge Logo

Welcome! Welcome to the January Lute Challenge 2023 Neusidler was born in Pressburg (today Bratislava, Slovakia) and first enters the historical record in 1530, when he settled in Nuremberg, Germany. He was issued a residence permit by the city council in February and married there in September. In April 1531, he became a citizen and…