Editing Lute (section)

== Repertoire ==

{{Main|List of composers for lute}}

[[File:Orazio Gentileschi - Il suonatore di liuto (National Gallery of Art).jpg|thumb|right|[[Orazio Gentileschi]]'s young lutenist, painted {{circa}} 1626, plays a 10-course lute, typical of the time from around 1600 through the 1630s]]

Lutes were in widespread use in Europe at least since the 13th century, and documents mention numerous early performers and composers. However, the earliest surviving lute music dates from the late 15th century. Lute music flourished during the 16th and 17th centuries: numerous composers published collections of their music, and modern scholars have uncovered a vast number of manuscripts from the era—however, much of the music is still lost. In the second half of the 17th century lutes, vihuelas and similar instruments started losing popularity, and little music was written for the instrument after 1750. The interest in lute music was revived only in the second half of the 20th century.

Improvisation (making up music on the spot) was, apparently, an important aspect of lute performance, so much of the repertoire was probably never written down. Furthermore, it was only around 1500 that lute players began to transition from [[plectrum]] to plucking. That change facilitated complex polyphony, which required that they develop notation. In the next hundred years, three schools of [[tablature]] notation gradually developed: Italian (also used in Spain), German, and French. Only the last survived into the late 17th century. The earliest known tablatures are for a six-stringed instrument, though evidence of earlier four- and five-stringed lutes exists.{{sfn|Apel |1949|p=54}} Tablature notation depends on the actual instrument the music is written for. To read it, a musician must know the instrument's tuning, number of strings, etc.

Renaissance and Baroque forms of lute music are similar to keyboard music of the periods. [[Intabulation]]s of vocal works were very common, as well as various dances, some of which disappeared during the 17th century, such as the [[Piva (dance)|piva]] and the [[saltarello]]. The advent of polyphony brought about ''fantasias'': complex, intricate pieces with much use of imitative counterpoint. The improvisatory element, present to some degree in most lute pieces, is particularly evident in the early ricercares (not imitative as their later namesakes, but completely free), as well as in numerous preludial forms: preludes, tastar de corde ("testing the strings"), etc. During the 17th century keyboard and lute music went hand in hand, and by 1700 lutenists were writing suites of dances quite akin to those of keyboard composers. The lute was also used throughout its history as an ensemble instrument—most frequently in songs for voice and lute, which were particularly popular in Italy (see [[frottola]]) and England.

The earliest surviving lute music is Italian, from a late 15th-century manuscript. The early 16th century saw [[Ottaviano Petrucci|Petrucci]]'s [[List of publications by Ottaviano Petrucci#Lute|publications]] of lute music by [[Francesco Spinacino]] ({{floruit}} 1507) and [[Joan Ambrosio Dalza]] ({{floruit}} 1508); together with the so-called [[Vincenzo Capirola|Capirola Lutebook]], these represent the earliest stage of written lute music in Italy. The leader of the next generation of Italian lutenists, [[Francesco Canova da Milano]] (1497–1543), is now acknowledged as one of the most famous lute composers in history. The bigger part of his output consists of pieces called fantasias or ricercares, in which he makes extensive use of imitation and sequence, expanding the scope of lute polyphony. In the early 17th century [[Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger]] ({{circa}} 1580–1651) and [[Alessandro Piccinini]] (1566–1638) revolutionized the instrument's technique and Kapsberger, possibly, influenced the keyboard music of [[Girolamo Frescobaldi]].

French written lute music began, as far as we know, with [[Pierre Attaingnant]]'s ({{circa}} 1494 – {{circa}} 1551) prints, which comprised preludes, dances and intabulations. Particularly important was the Italian composer [[Albert de Rippe]] (1500–1551), who worked in France and composed polyphonic fantasias of considerable complexity. His work was published posthumously by his pupil, [[Guillaume de Morlaye]] (born {{circa}} 1510), who, however, did not pick up the complex polyphony of de Rippe. French lute music declined during the second part of the 16th century; however, various changes to the instrument (the increase of diapason strings, new tunings, etc.) prompted an important change in style that led, during the early Baroque, to the celebrated [[style brisé]]: broken, arpeggiated textures that influenced [[Johann Jakob Froberger]]'s suites. The French Baroque school is exemplified by composers such as [[Ennemond Gaultier]] (1575–1651), [[Denis Gaultier]] (1597/1603–1672), [[François Dufault|François Dufaut]] (before 1604 – before 1672) and many others. The last stage of French lute music is exemplified by [[Robert de Visée]] ({{circa}} 1655–1732/3), whose suites exploit the instrument's possibilities to the fullest.

The history of German written lute music started with [[Arnolt Schlick]] ({{circa}} 1460–after 1521), who, in 1513, published a collection of pieces that included 14 voice and lute songs, and three solo lute pieces, alongside organ works. He was not the first important German lutenist, because contemporaries credited [[Conrad Paumann]] ({{circa}} 1410–1473) with the invention of German lute tablature, though this claim remains unproven, and no lute works by Paumann survive. After Schlick, a string of composers developed German lute music: [[Hans Judenkünig]] ({{circa}} 1445/50 – 1526), the Neusidler family (particularly [[Hans Neusidler]] ({{circa}} 1508/09 – 1563)) and others. During the second half of the 16th century, German tablature and German repertoire were gradually replaced by Italian and French tablature and international repertoire, respectively, and the [[Thirty Years' War]] (1618–1648) effectively stopped publications for half a century. German lute music was revived much later by composers such as [[Esaias Reusner]] ({{floruit}} 1670), however, a distinctly German style came only after 1700 in the works of [[Silvius Leopold Weiss]] (1686–1750), one of the greatest lute composers, some of whose works were transcribed for keyboard by none other than [[Johann Sebastian Bach]] (1685–1750), who composed a few pieces for the lute himself (though it is unclear whether they were really intended for the lute, rather than another plucked string instrument or the [[lautenwerk]]).

Of other European countries, particularly important are England and Spain. English-written lute music began only around 1540; however, the country produced numerous lutenists, of which [[John Dowland]] (1563–1626) is perhaps the most famous. His influence spread very far: variations on his themes were written by keyboard composers in Germany decades after his death. Dowland's predecessors and colleagues, such as [[Anthony Holborne]] ({{circa}} 1545–1602) and [[Daniel Bacheler]] (1572–1619), were less known. Spanish composers wrote mostly for the [[vihuela]]; their main genres were polyphonic fantasias and {{lang|es|differencias}} (variations). [[Luis Milan|Luys Milan]] (c. 1500 – after 1560) and [[Luis de Narváez|Luys de Narváez]] ({{floruit}} 1526–1549) were particularly important for their contributions to the development of lute polyphony in Spain.

Finally, perhaps the most influential European lute composer was the Hungarian [[Bálint Bakfark]] ({{circa}} 1526/30–1576), whose contrapuntal fantasias were much more difficult and tighter than those of his Western European contemporaries.

[[Ottorino Respighi]]'s famous orchestral suites called ''Ancient Airs and Dances'' are drawn from various books and articles on 16th- and 17th-century lute music transcribed by the musicologist Oscar Chilesotti, including eight pieces from a German manuscript ''Da un Codice Lauten-Buch'', now in a private library in northern Italy.