Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

The Lautenweltadressbuch, compiled by Klaus Martius, a database of historical lutes in museum and private collections.

Digital Facsimiles — Historical works for lute and related instruments available on the Internet.

The FoMRHI Bulletin on line in PDF format.  This journal contains many articles relating to historical lute construction and stringing.  The complete tables of contents are posted on a separate page where they can be searched easily in your browser.

“The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900 – 1600,” by Willi Apel, The Mediaeval Academy Of America, 1949.  Lute tablature notation is treated on pages 54 – 86.  A similar reference work in German, “Handbuch der Notationskunde” by Johannes Wolf (Leipzig, Breitkopf und Härtel, 1919), is freely available in many formats, including several for e-readers. Lute tablature is treated in Chapter 2, beginning on p. 35.

Sixteenth-Century Printed Tablatures for the Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela: An Annotated Bibliography, compiled by Dr. Gary R. Boye

“English Lute Manuscripts and Scribes 1530-1630” by Julia Craig-McFeeley; a study of the English Lute Manuscripts of the so-called ‘Golden Age’, including a detailed catalogue of the sources.

“Lute Realizations for the English Cavalier Songs (1630-1670) – A Guide for Performers” by Gus Denhard; a D.M. dissertation at Indiana University, 2006.

“French Baroque Lute Music from 1650-1700” by Robin Rolfhamre; a masters degree dissertation at Agder University, 2010.

“Mus. Ms. 1511b: A Historical Review of a Lute Manuscript in the Herwarth Collection at the Bavarian Library, Munich” by Douglas William Beasley; a dissertation for the M.M. degree at the University of North Texas, Denton, 2007. (PDF file, 2.03 MB)

“Giovanni Antonio Terzi and the Lute Intabulations of late sixteenth-century Italy” by Suzanne E. Court; a dissertation analyzing the lute works of Giovanni Antonio Terzi, which are contained in his two tablature collections published in Venice in 1593 and 1599. The second volume of the dissertation includes 45 transcriptions of intabulations and fantasias by Terzi and his contemporaries.

“The five-course guitar and seventeenth-century harmony:  Alfabeto and Italian song” by Alexander Dean; a dissertation for the Ph. D. degree at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, Rochester NY, 2009. (Six PDF files)

“La tiorba ed il suo uso in Italia come strumento per il basso continuo,” by Diego Cantalupi; the dissertation for his degree in musicology in 1996 at the Università di Pavia, revised in 2006 for publication on the Internet (in Italian).

“Die Lautenbücher Philipp Hainhofers (1578 - 1647)” by Joachim Lüdtke; his dissertation, completed at Göttingen, 1999 (in German)

English Renaissance Lute Practice as Reflected in Robert Dowland’s Varietie of Lute Lessons, dissertation by Robert J. Nolde, Rice University, Houston TX, 1984.

Bibliography of musicological publications by John Griffiths, with emphasis on the vihuela.  Many of the entries are linked to electronic copies.

Sources manuscrites en tablature/Manuscript sources in tablature, ca. 1500 – ca. 1800, a project to create a comprehensive index, by title and composer, of all known lute pieces in historical manuscript sources.

A Catalog of Manuscripts for the Baroque Lute, being compiled by Peter Steur, with input from Markus Lutz.

Manuscript Catalog of The British Library, with a useful search engine.

Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music, a listing of facsimiles of manuscripts of medieval music, some of which are available on line – not necessarily lute music, but some of the pieces are appropriate for performance on medieval lute or gittern.

The Motet Catalog, indexing more than 50,000 motets and mass proper incipits in printed and manuscript anthologies originating between 1475 and 1600.  Many, though not yet all single-composer prints are included.

An extensive iconography of the lute, compiled by Mary Rasmussen, University of New Hampshire, divided geographically and chronologically:

• Dutch and Flemish, 15th to 16th century.

• Dutch and Flemish, 16th century.

• France, 16th to 17th century.

• Germany, Austria & Switzerland, 15th to 16th century.

• Germany, Austria & Switzerland, mid-16th century.

• Germany, Austria & Switzerland, 16th to 17th century.

• Italy, 15th to 16th century.

• Italy, mid-16th century.

• Italy, 16th to 17th century.

Recorder Iconography, compiled by Nicholas S. Lander, including many references to lutes or lutenists portrayed in artworks also depicting the recorder.

Taking Care of Your Lute:  simple straightforward instructions compiled by Jiří Čepalák