Alfonso Ferrabosco I (1543 - 1588)

A musician from a Bolognese musical family who served intermittently between 1562 and 1578 in the English court of Elizabeth 1. He is known as a composer of both vocal and instrumental work including lute music; he also wrote music for the bandora. His half dozen known (or attributed) compositions for this instrument represent a fair proportion of its surviving solo repertory (Field, accessed 11/06/2008). Ferrabosco’s lute and bandora music is available in a collected edition from OUP (North 1979) from which these arrangements are made. The numbering of the pieces follows North.

Ferrabosco's son (known as Alfonso Ferrabosco 2) was also an English court musician responsible, among other works, for a number of pieces for the Lyra Viol. I hope to post arrangements of some of his pieces in due course.

Bandora Fantasia No.1 [PDF] [MIDI] [XML] Grade 07

Bandora Fantasia No.2
[PDF] [MIDI] [XML] Grade 07
This work is published in both lute and bandora versions in the OUP edition. In one manuscript source it is attributed to Richard Allison and it also appears in The Lute Society edition of Allison’s music (
Robinson & McCoy 1995).

Bandora Fantasia No.4 [PDF] [MIDI] [XML] Grade 08

Bandora Pavan [PDF] [MIDI] [XML] Grade 07
This pavan is no. 5 in (
North 1979) North also gives two versions for lute.

Lute Pavan No.1 [PDF] [MIDI] [XML] Grade 07
This pavan appears in the printed collection by Robert Dowland
A Varietie of Lute Lessons.

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