Lute song

The basic style of lute songs is light and serious, with poetic lyrics that usually followed word-setting to composed music.

King Louis XIII was believed to be fond of the simple songs, which led to a volume of work during his reign.

This was an earlier strophic form of music that was for a solo voice accompanied by a small group of string instruments.

In England, the lute song was usually called an "ayre", possibly borrowed from the French word, air.

This is considered the beginning of the popularity of the lute songs, that set the standard for other composer’s songbooks of English ayres.

John Dowland's ayres, like other composers, used music from dance forms such as pavane, galliard and jig, for the melody.

Other composers of lute songs during this time include John Danyel, Robert Jones, Pilkington and Alfonso Ferrabosco.

In 1582, Composer Didier LeBlanc released a collection of 43 short airs that were strophic form, homophonic and ametric structure.