The English Dancing Master, a 1651 publication by John Playford, was quite an influential book in its way, remaining in print for three-quarters of a century. It contained instructions for what Playford called country dances, which were suggested by the dances of rural England but were aimed at aristocrats. They were nevertheless simpler than the dances of the courtly tradition, and it has been suggested that Playford's book represented the beginning of popular dance. The dances were accompanied by tunes, written out in a single line of melody. They came from miscellaneous sources -- some were old songs like Greensleeves, some were apparently melodies from the countryside, and some were contemporary tunes from operas and incidental music for plays.
The idea of trying to realize The English Dancing Master in the form of a recording is a good one, but it requires a good deal of imaginative reconstruction on the part of the players inasmuch as they have only plain tunes to work with. In this era of free treatments of Renaissance music, that wouldn't pose much of a problem for the likes of
Jordi Savall. But Germany's
Lautten Compagney goes in the wrong direction with the music. This group has undeniable talent on a wide variety of instruments that ranges from recorders to jew's-harp, and the variety of textures they create is dazzling. To quote their own liner notes, they "engage in creative synthesis," and juxtapose "artificial constructs alongside severely minimalist forms, virtuoso variation next to idiosyncratic improvisation, in a spectrum from tender to tempestuous, from pastorale to jam session." This is all very impressive, but what gets lost in all the ideas being slung around is that these pieces were dances. Their rhythmic zest is lost under all the additional layers the group introduces. This is a virtuoso re-creation of a landmark of English culture, but it remains to be seen how other musicians might elaborate on Playford's sparse notation with a greater sense of fidelity to the music and its function.