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	Prima Edizione LP		Telefunken - 6.42705 AZ - (1 LP) - LC 0366 - durata 50' 08" - (p) 1961 - Digital
	Edizione "Reference" CD		Tedec - 8.44009 ZS - (1 CD) - LC 3706 - durata 50' 08" - (c) 1988 - DDD
	Cover		"Gitarrenspielerin" aus der Serie "Musiksoli", Porzellan. Modell von J. Chr. W. Beyer, Ludwigsburg um 1765/66. Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.

About Myself Though I was given an instrument (a violin) when I was six, I never thought of becoming a musician - indeed I preferred everything to practising the violin. So much so that, following a family tradition, I almost became a dancer - but in came the “beat” era and under this influence I began, at 15, to play the guitar in a group. I founded various : pop groups in which I played bass guitar or solo; but eventually I got mixed up with classical again. I finished the Béla Bartok Conservatory, | Budapest, as a guitarist, and went on to the Budapest “Ferenc Liszt” Academy of Music, where I got a degree in guitar. But even after this I. was not sure if I’d be a guitarist or not, because just after finishing I met a lutist by chance: this was the first occasion I heard a lute “face to face” (Lwas 24 then!). I decided to play the lute myself I attended lute courses in England and Holland (led by Eugen M. Dombois and Diana Poulton) and in a short time it turned out that the lute was my instrument. But it came to light in a couple of years that the guitar, too, was among my instruments; gradually I started playing more and more instruments, the orpharion, vihuela, Baroque lute, Baroque guitar, oud, etc. During one concert I normally change instruments - on such occasions I arrive equipped like this (see illustration No. 2). In 1972 I founded the Bakfark Consort, and a few years later the Benkö Consort. With these ensembles I play music from Eastern and Western Europe, from the 13th to the 19th century. I also did teaching at a time, including giving lute lessons at the “Ference Liszt” Academy of Music in Budapest. Occasionally I give courses, as I did in Kloster Langwaden, and as I do in Groznjan, Yugoslavia. I started recording in my second lute-playing year, among other things the complete lute works of Balint Bakfark, the first of which was chosen “Pick of the Year” by the London magazine “Record and Recording”. I also did a number of records with my ensembles. Besides theoretical work (writing articles and publishing music) I travel around the world: alone, with many instruments; and with the ensembles, with even more instruments. And as I said above in the sleevenotes: I play pop music. I started as a “beat” musician and I still claim to be one: the pop musician of bygone ages. We might as well have called this record “Renaissance Pop Music”, for the selection brings together some of the most popular melodies and international themes of the 16th century: dances and fantasies which, during that century, were just as popular as is a Beatles or a Donna Summer tune these days. They were sung (or danced to, as the case may be) from Italy to England, from the court of Burgundy to the royal castle of Cracow. Though one dance sprung from German soil, another from Italy, or Hungary, or far-away England, they have a good deal in common as in that age musicians spoke one international language making it possible for one melody to appear, and become popular, in various cultural centres of Europe no matter where its original had come from: in a few decades it lost its national characteristics. The best example for this is “Danza und Pezzo Tedesco” (Anon.); both dances are of the allemand-type, both come from Italy, but the second clearly shows its German origins. (These were first published by O. Chilesotti.) We finda very similar rhythm and melody in the Lublin Tablature Book around 1540, or in Heckel’s 1572 collection. Various manuscripts from Prague contain a similar dance entitled Bathori Tanz, which obviously points to a Hungarian or Polish origin - but this rhythm and dance makes its way as far as France: we may recognize our piece in the Branle de Bourgogne of Claude Gervaise’s collection of 1556. The opening melody of the record is probably the most popular one of the 16th century. Its original (mind you, what is “original” ?) title is “Ich gieng einmal spacieren” - but the theme appears under a bewildering number of titles, e.g. “Almande Nonnette” in the Netherlands, “The Queen’s Alman” in England, “La Monicha” and “Celeste Giglio” in Italy; in France its names are “Une jeune fillette” or “Une vierge pucelle” or “Ma belle siton”. There is also a church version: “Helft mir Gott’s Güte preisen”. Whether this tune was born as instrumental with the lyrics added later (as they have been preserved) or the original had words which later some composers omitted, we do not know; but the same is true for a lot of Italian, French and Dutch instrumental music whose titles suggest a song original with lyrics that later got lost. The publisher of this item was Matthäus Waisselius” (Waissel) a German-Prussian lute teacher and performer. These activities naturally went together, a lutist did all jobs: he searched for old melodies by other composers, adapted them or included them in his collection (plagiarism had not been invented yet), but he also composed music himself, and performed his works travelling the world - provided, of course, that he was among the successful. Waisselius surely was, for he published four grand collections at Frankfurt-on-the-Oder between 1573 and 1592. Most of the pieces are works by others, but he is very fair in quoting their names, e.g. Lassus, Bakfark, etc. The dances on our record may be of folk origin or may have been composed by Waisselius himself; it was not customary to indicate the composer of such short pieces at that time. These dances are from the “Tabulatura” of 1573, an enormous collection of 52 pieces: fantasies, dances, intabulations, transcriptions. I selected this suite-like medley of dances quite arbitrarily, at time omitting the proportio, at time playing the proportio only: I don’t think the author would have insisted on having them performed in their order of printing. Waisselius adds little figuration to the dances, compared to his passamezzos and intabulations. He does not print out the repetitions but merely indicates them; thus I necessarily had to create the figurations myself, following the model of Waisselius’s other works. A few decades after the flourishing of Waisselius the “Danziger Manuskript”, the famous manuscript of Gdansk (MS 4022) was produced, which included some of his works as well as several Western European (chiefly French and Italian) dances. Unfortunately this collection got lost during World War II, and only some pieces of which transcripts had been made before the war are now known. It is from these that I have selected some. The first has a melodical relation to Hungary, the last is a typical Polish dance in 3/4, with the stress on the second fourth. The number preceding it, in 3/4 and minor key, is related to another piece on this record: the “Melancholy Galliard” by Dowland - itis actually a folia-theme, a variant of that one. Closely attached to the Danzig Tablature Book is the “Vietorisz-Codex”, which is also from the early 17th century; the music, however, is renaissance much more than baroque. (In Hungary, music was generally written down with a time lag of 100 to 120 years, owing to the long lasting Turkish occupation.) This manuscript of tablatures (Ammerbach organ tablature), containing about 400 melodies, church and secular, instrumental and vocal, is the largest such collection in Hungary, presenting an all-round picture of the repertory of the provincial home music of its period. It has Turkish melodies as well as Slovak, Rumanian, Polish and Hungarian music, a couple of Western European dances, church and folk songs, and flower (love) songs. The collection passed through many hands till eventually it got to the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Itused to belong to the Vietörisz family, hence the name. You may wonder how these pieces, written down in organ tablature, have been included in a lute recital record, among original compositions. But consider that there were several such tablature books in provincial Hungary, and there are indications that any musician was expected to play from such an organ tablature - trumpeter, keyboard player, lutist equally found their way through this simple, amateur-level tablature script. To be sure, each played of it what he could: the trumpeter played only the melody, the bass played only the bass part; for the collection is put down in two parts. The lutist would fill out these two extremities with inner chords, occasionally adding appropriate figurations. You will also meet the names of some of the giants of the lute: the Hungarian Bakfark, Newsidler, who also came from Hungarian soil; Dowland, who flourished half century later; from Italy, the “divine” Francesco da Milano. We are naturally tempted to compare their activities. All four composers ranked among the greatest of their age: playing at royal courts, they were composers and performers at the same time, but may have done political services, too, at one time or another. Balint Bakfark, a Hungarian by birth, turned up at nearly every European court. He was born in Transylvania, became the lutist of Buda Castle, then went on through Italy to Lyon, where his first lute book was published (Intabulatura 1553). Later he moved to Poland where he worked for 17 years; but he had to flee because of some intrigue, nearly losing his life in the flight. He went to Vienna right away and for a while served as court lutist to Emperor Maximilian; at last he settled in Italy, at Padua, where he taught compositionasa university professor. Some hint as to his teaching method can be gathered from a letter in which a student of his complains to his patron: “Maestro Bakfark is an excellent teacher, but I wish I did not have to sleep under his roof: for it is all right to teach during the day, but he often wakes me from my sleep and beats me till I play as is pleasing to him.“ (Actually, this lutist did learn his craft well, for he became court musician in Prussia.) Bakfark was a typical Renaissance personality, whose virtuosity was sung by contemporary poets. To quote just one example: the great Polish humanist poet Jan Kochanowski wrote: “Touch not the lute after Bakfark!” I included in the present recording two intabulations and an original fantasy. Bakfark’s intabulation technique is as simple as can be: he plays on his instrument exactly what the choir composer wrote for 4 or 5 or 6 parts. Indeed, this sounds almost too simple - but it isn’t. Intabulators usually distorted the piece; reducing the chords to inversions different from those in the original, in order to simplify and, as it were, instrumentalize them. The problem with Bakfark is that he writes down exactly what he sees or hears. The left hand will consequently have to play tortuous arrangements, the piece will bear little affinity to the instrument - but the result speaks foritself! He applies little figuration in the two intabulations, but where he does, and the way he weaves them into the piece, they are unalterable. This is why one uses less figuration in Bakfark than elsewhere: one would lose rather than gain byit. Nine original compositions by Bakfark are extant. He has nine fantasies; the tenth, also bearing the name fantasy, is a transcription. Fantasy 1” has a motet-like structure, with non-returning themes; it launches new themes in a fourpart fugue-like manner. As the respective themes are completely separated and express different atmospheres, I thought to give each of them a different character bothin dynamics and in tempo, even though there is no indication to this in the notation - but one may take this amount of liberty with a fantasy. Italian lute music is represented on the record by Francesco da Milano and Joan Ambrosio Dalza. Francesco, like Bakfark, moved about in the biggest courts, and penned innumerable fantasies, which count as the greatest in that genre. A direct road leads from Francesco’s fantasies to the variations of Frescobaldi and Bach. I have chosena ricercare, more harmonic in character but likewise ornamented with contrapuntal insets. Dalza is one of the first lutists ofthe 16th century; one year after the appearance of the firstever printed lute book (Francesco Spinaccino: Intabolature 1507), he publishes his own collection of dances: surprisingly early “suites”, series of several movements mostly elaborating one theme. Here the Pavane is followed by the Saltarello and  the bagpipe-like Piva. Especially in the Piva movement we have an obvious case of folk music adaption. The dances have a sophisticated asymmetry - each time I play them again, they strike me with their novelty. J. A. Dalza’s tunes, then, are the earliest pieces on our record; the latest ones are Elizabethan dances from England. Dowland, Cutting and Bulman are among the greatest from this âge, but so many lutists, instrumental and vocal composers are active in this period that we shall not attempt to list them. After the defeat of the great Spanish Armada England emerges as the greatest economic and military power of Europe, with a rich middle class: this evidently had its effect on the musical scene, too. Dozens of printers set up, and there was music everywhere, from the simplest townhouse to the most luxurious palace. We even have etchings showing a barber’s shop with musical instruments on the wall: those waiting for their turn would not gossip or discuss politics or, as nowadays, leaf through funny or sex magazines, but play music, each taking his part. The most significant master is undoubtedly John Dowland, a controversial, truly renaissance figure, who, similarly to Bakfark, went through all sorts of personal intrigues and whose life abounds in surprising turns. The lute pieces of Elizabethan composers could be played on orpharion or bandora as well. I play the English lute pieces onan orpharion: a Biffin, made in Australia in 1971. I chose it, with its metallic ringing, for the sake of greater variety. (See picture No. 1.) There remain the works of the German Newsidlers: the “Fugger Tanz” by Melchior, and the profane dances by Hans. Profane they are indeed, and vulgar too, especially the Gassenhauer, very much like today’s pub music. If we compared the dances of Dowland and Waissel to today’s pop music, we may certainly compare the Newsidlers’ Gassenhauer to today’s pub or “Schrammel” music. So, I have tried to present a century’s secular lute musicin a selection that would best characterize the age, including everything from vulgar to dance, courtly and folk dance music up to the most complicated fantasy. The instrument I play on is a replica of the 1641 lute of Matteo Sellas alla corone in Venetia. (Its original is in the Hungarian National Museum. Cote 1951.43. Delhaes 1902.20.) (See cover photo.) Daniel Benkö Notes: 1.) Matthaus Waissel: Tablatura, 1573. mod. ed. Orpheus. Editio Musica, Budapest, 1980. ed. by Daniel Benkò. 2.) Balint Bakfark: Intabulatura 1553, mod. ed. Opera Omnia, Editio Musica, Budapest, 1976. ed. by Istvan Homolya and Daniel Benkö.