John Dowland - Publications

Publications

In 1597, Dowland published his First Book of Songs in London. It was one of the most influential and important musical publications of the history of the lute. This collection of lute-songs was set out in a way that allows performance by a soloist with lute accompaniment or various combinations of singers and instrumentalists.

Dowland published two books of songs after the First Book of Songs, in 1600 and 1603, as well as the Lachrymae in 1604. He also published a translation of the Micrologus of Andreas Ornithoparcus in 1609, originally printed in Leipzig in 1517, a rather stiff and medieval treatise, but nonetheless occasionally entertaining.

Dowland's last, and in the opinion of most scholars, best work, A Pilgrimes Solace, was published in 1612, and seems to have been conceived more as a collection of contrapuntal music than as solo works.