Dowland: A galliard on Walsingham (P 31)

And now a version of Walsingham by the greatest of the Elizabethan composers for the lute, John Dowland.  It has been arranged for the ukulele (in A minor) after Poulton D, Lam B, Eds. 1995. The collected lute music of John Dowland, Edn 3. Faber Music, London. There is a post about the song As I went to Walsingham and the arrangements of it by various of his contemporaries here.

Facsimile of the piece in one of Matthew Holmes' Lute Books.
This is a very clear image, and comparing it with the published transcriptions helped me to understand the calligraphy.

There are 3 variations. The first keeps fairly closely to the melody, whilst the second and third deviate considerably. Indeed, since the second ends on the dominant chord (E major), numbers 2 & 3 could be regarded as parts of one variation.

Even in strain 1 the melody is sometimes buried in the lower voices. Variation 3 contains a number of descending scale fragments, as was Dowland’s wont. The “Solus cum sola” motif appears in bar 15.

Available for download in the following formats:

pdf
TablEdit