Saturday quotes 2.23 Dowland’s training Part 3 The last two
installments of our Saturday quotes have been given over to
tracing the possible early musical training of John Dowland
(1563 – 1626), probably the best-known representative of the
Golden Age of English lute music. We have cross-referenced some
of the ample evidence indicating that, in Tudor England, the
usual introduction to music for a child not of noble birth was
as a choirboy whose task was to provide music for liturgical
purposes. From the summary information found in David G. T.
Harris, “Musical Education in Tudor Times (1485-1603)”,
Proceedings of the Musical Association, 65th Sess. (1938 –
1939), p. 136 “The Song Schools of the Colleges of Winchester
and Eton; Oxford and Cambridge; the Choristers’ Schools attached
to the Cathedrals, the Chapel Royal, and St. George’s Chapel,
Windsor; also those connected with private Chapels of the
gentry, trained Choristers for their own particular use. They
were the institutions where the great Elizabethan