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The French-born Dutch lutenist and composer, Nicolas Vallet [Valet, Vale], a Huguenot, was born at Corbeny, Aisne, but fled from France to the Netherlands for religious reasons. In Amsterdam he worked as a self-supporting musician, lute-teacher, publisher and as the owner of a dance school.
His primary work, Le Secret des Muses, (The Secret of the Lute) is an instruction book for the lute, which contains compositions (including a composition by Claude Lejeune) and instruction for the 10-string Renaissance lute. It appeared in 1615 in a Dutch, a Latin and a French editions. It was among the last compositions to appear for this instrument, before it was supplanted by the Baroque lute. He also wrote Le second livre de la tabulature de lute (1618 and 1619); Piéte royale, the 150 Psalms of David arranged for the lute (1620); 21 Psalms arranged for the violin and the lute (1619); Apollinis süsse Leyer... for violin and bass (Amsterdam, Janssen, 1642); and Regia Pietas (1622).
According to Frederick Neumann, Nicolas Vallet may have been among the first to introduce ornaments into lute tablature. |
