Vallet: Lute Music

The lute master Nicolas Vallet (c.1583 – c.1642) was born and raised during the first three decades of his life in France, his musical career and publications developed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Widely acknowledged as a lute and dance teacher there, he simultaneously stood out as one of the most important and fruitful composers of sacred music for his instrument, making lute settings of the Calvinist psalms from the Genevan Psalter.

Vallet’s compositions cover the three instrumental genres of the Renaissance in his repertory – free abstract pieces (preludes and fantasias), dances, and settings of vocal pieces. In this he is probably one of the last lutenists of the Renaissance tradition, giving way to the new forms of instrumental sonatas and suites, based predominantly on dance movements.

Yavor Genov is a lutenist and basso continuo player. His four solo CDs for Brilliant Classics – ‘Orpheus Anglorum’ (2018, BC 95551), ‘Zamboni – lute music’ (2014) and ‘Kapsberger – Libro primo di lauto/Libro D’Intavolatura di Lauto’ (2013, BC 94409) and ‘Neusidler – Lute Music’ (2022, BC 96456) have received international critical acclaim. He has collaborated with musicians like Dame Emma Kirkby, Núria Rial, Andrew Lawrence-King, Lars Ulrik Mortensen and Teodor Currentzis. Yavor has studied early plucked instruments and basso continuo with Jakob Lindberg.

The lute master Nicolas Vallet (c.1583–c.1642) lived and worked in a borderland between musical categories. The first three decades of his life were spent in France, then his musical career and published compositions unfolded in Amsterdam. Widely acknowledged as a lute and dance teacher in the Netherlands, he also won fame as one of the most important and prolific authors of sacred music for his instrument, making lute settings of the Calvinist psalms from the Genevan Psalter.
Vallet lived when the lute was undergoing significant changes in terms of tuning, right hand technique and predominant genres, with the impulse for some of these changes coming from his French compatriots. Yet he demonstrates that the older Renaissance approaches towards both composition and performance are still relevant. An impressive part of his repertoire comprises
contrapuntal preludes and fantasias following the manner of the masters of previous generations, in which various thematic motives and complex abstract forms are woven into the polyphonic texture. At the same time his lute collections include vast variety of dances, some of which were just entering the performance practice of the time, such as the Sarabande and Bourée. The volume Regia Pietas is entirely dedicated to Protestant (Calvinist) sacred music intabulated for lute solo. Most of the psalms are arranged in two parts. Vallet’s main approaches to these chants is to either develop them as a set of variations or provide them a contrapuntal treatment. This shows that Vallet’s output covers the three instrumental genres of the Renaissance: free abstract pieces (preludes and fantasias), dances and settings of vocal pieces.
For this recording a ten-course lute is used, strung in gut at 415 Hz. This type of gut stringing considerably affects the overall sound of the lute, its resonance and sonority, hopefully bringing the lute a bit closer to what one might imagine as an ‘original’ sound of the time.

● Recorded January 2023 in Sofia, Bulgaria
● Genov plays a 10-course lute by Jiří Čepelák (2019, Prague), after a mid-16th-century Bolognese model by Hans Frei (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, no. C.34); strung in gut
● Booklet in English contains liner notes by the artist and his biography

Nicolas Vallet (1583-1642)

• Bourree d’Avignon; Ballet III; Prelude III; Passemeze d’Italye; Gaillaide de Passemeze; Pavanne; Fantasye sur le Passemeze d’Italye; La sarabande Espagnolle; Gaillarde; Courante; Praeludium; Psalm 53 insaniens; Canticum marie; Onse Vader in Hemelryck; Prelude I; Fortune Angloise; Malsimmes; Slaep soete slaep; Ballet I; Gaillarde du comte Essex; La piccarde; La vallette; Une jeune fillette; Pavanne de spagne; Onder de lindegrone; Carillon de village