Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lauren Jones

Date

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Music

Department

Music

Committee Chair

Kenneth Kreitner

Committee Member

Joel Roberts

Committee Member

Patrick Sutton

Abstract

A volume simply marked “Jane Pickeringe’s Lute Book” is held in the Egerton Collection at the British Library. It is an unassuming book filled with handwritten copies of lute pieces and is dated from 1616 to 1650. Some of the works are among the most famous lute opuses of the time, and some are simple, popular tunes. It includes duets, trios, and solo pieces, and a majority of the works are in one person’s handwriting, while there are over ten pieces in the back which are unclear sketches of music which are clearly in another person’s handwriting. Until now, this book has not been transcribed into modern notation from the original French lute tablature. The aim of this thesis is twofold: to transcribe the solo pieces into modern notation which are written in the hand of presumably Jane Pickeringe, and to discern what can be known about Jane Pickeringe herself. Using previously transcribed pieces of John Dowland as a reference for how to translate the lute tablature into modern notation, I have been able to explore the English modification of the popular French tablature. I was also able to connect with a distant relative of Pickeringe’s, whose extensive genealogy research was a tremendous aid in discovering who Jane Pickeringe actually was. Although records of women’s lives in the seventeenth century are scarce and hard to come by, we were able to narrow it down to three women named Jane Pickering who may have been the woman to pen the lute book. I was also able to successfully transcribe the solo lute music into modern notation, presented in the third chapter of this thesis.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.”

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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