Copied out in Scotland at the close of the seventeenth century, the Balcarres Lute Book is the largest and most important post-1640 British source of lute music. It contains 252 compositions arranged for the eleven-course instrument, among them settings of native Scots airs and of English popular tunes, and French baroque lute music by mid- and later seventeenth-century masters. Possibly compiled by or for Margaret Campbell, fourth wife of Colin Lindsay, third Earl of Balcarres, the manuscript has remained in the Lindsay family, being owned currently by Lord Balniel, son and heir to the present Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who has deposited it in the National Library of Scotland. It is here published for the first time in a pair of volumes comprising a black-and-white facsimile and a transcription, along with an extended introduction, notes on related musical sources, and an informative critical commentary on each individual piece.MATTHEW SPRING is Senior Lecturer in Music at Bath Spa University, author of The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and its Music and a wellknown performer on the lute and related instruments.
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