Francis Cutting

Francis Reducing may be at exactly the same time perhaps one of the most important and perhaps one of the most obscure music artists to flourish in Elizabethan Britain. He was perhaps one of the most essential because he most likely was the initial musician to produce a name for himself playing the lute instead of by performing in cathedral choirs or by key pad playing. Furthermore, just the heroic years soon after his period — John Dowland, Daniel Bacheler, and Antony Holborne — still left more making it through compositions. Completely 11 of Cutting’s parts were published in Barley’s 1596 New Booke of Tabliture, and his was the just name printed completely. Cutting’s music shows at times one of the most tuneful dance music, with others great bursts of ornamentation and incredible harmonic surprises. His music was evidently in solid demand among the Elizabethan higher crust, however historians must totally speculate at his biography. Cutting’s tale, apparently, starts in East Anglia, in the huge estates from the Howard family members. Many associates of Reducing families have been Lord Howard’s tenants, and one Francis Reducing rented a tenement in the Strand, near Howard’s town palace of Arundel, living there until his loss of life in 1571. Eight of the man’s 10 kids are signed up in the parish cathedral information, and upon his loss of life, his widow still acquired financial promises on Lord Howard. No evidence can decidedly hyperlink this Francis Reducing using the known lutenist, or place him in Howard’s program, but one informing reality gleams through the traditional haze. Upon the settling of the Francis Cutting’s will, his widow provided the eldest child his “seale Ringe from the lute,” which son Thomas evidently went on to become professional musician. If we have discovered the true Francis Trimming, the musician exerted a solid influence on Elizabethan musical tradition. He wrote items dedicated to a number of the very best in the property, including Fulke Greville and Sir Walter Raleigh. He was buried in his parish chapel near Lord Howard’s Arundel Home, and his child went on to try out for Woman Arabella Stuart and Ruler Christian IV of Denmark.