Recorder and viol consort music was common in the Renaissance and late Renaissance, following the SATB a capella model provided by vocal music. Surviving lute consort music however is fairly rare and these examples from Nicolas Vallet's Secret des Muses, volume 2, are somewhat unique in their mix of musical sophistication and party-hardy atmosphere.

For me, they were a good way of working on slurs and fingerings, as well as an exercise in adapting the transcription's look to match reasonably close to  the original. Although I have revised the files and modified the tunings provided by Richard Civiol a few years back, there is still a need for careful proof-reading. Given the thick texture of the music, the MIDI files are a crucial help in getting to the point where the transcription is solid enough for performance purposes.

All parts can be played on the same lute, although in a consort setting different size lutes with different tunings would have been used. Although pitch was a very relative thing before the invention of the tuning fork, our modern habits (and softwares...) force us to decide. In this case, I have opted for :

• Soprano: a 10-course lute in D
• Contratenor: a 10-course lute in A
• Tenor: a 10-course lute in G
• Bass: a 10-course lute in D

The music was recorded in the album: Three, Four & Twenty Lutes Lindberg, North, Meunier & O´Dette where it is number 10 in the list.