Adrian Le Roy

Premiere Livre de Tablature de Guitar   1551

Source: IMSLP

Born circa 1520 in Montreuil-sur-Mer in northern France, Adrian Le Roy was a string musician who played the cittern, lute, guitar and mandore. The lute was the most popular instrument of the secular Renaissance. The cittern was a recent development compared to the ancient lute, traveling from Italy in the 15th century to Britain where it came to significant presence. The guitar in its present form evolved largely of entrance into France from Spain in the early 16th century contemporaneously with Le Roy. The mandore arrived in the latter part of the century.

Earliest records of employment find Le Roy with Claude de Clermont, then Jacques II, Baron de Semblançay and Viscount of Tours. He married the daughter of publisher, Jean de Brouilly, in Paris in 1546. Le Roy founded the printing firm, Le Roy & Ballard, in 1551 with Robert Ballard, obtaining the privilege to publish from King Henry II on 16 February 1552. Albeit the invention of movable type in Germany by Gutenberg about 1440 had sparked intense competition by early publishing houses, one couldn't print just as one pleased during the Renaissance, and especially not during the Reformation (1517-1648). Press and business in general, such as sailing the New World for spoil, was rigidly controlled by royalty. The first newspaper, incidentally, wasn't published until 1605 by Johann Carolus in Germany.

With Ballard assuming business tasks and Le Roy making editorial decisions, Le Roy and Ballard became the largest and most successful publishing house in France by the seventies and would remain in business into the 19th century. Their first book "off the press" was Le Roy's 'Premier Livre de Tablature de Guitar' ('First Book of Tabs for Guitar') in 1551. That included tablature for the branle and the almande. Dance, of course, is nothing new from the ancient belly dance or Judeo-Christian dance through medieval and Renaissance dance. "Branle" means to shake or sway in French, which dance of the common people emerged in the 16th century, dancers chaining in a circle, hips side to side (Le Roy's 'Branle Simple' of 1551). "Almande" (to become allemande) is loosely French for "German dance" which form of the aristocracy also surfaced in the 16th century, a popular dance alongside the later minuet (French) until the waltz (Austro-German) largely took the place of both in the 19th century. Though the allemande focused on disciplined formality, it was nevertheless at root of the more lively square dance.

By Le Roy's time numerous forms or genres of music sacred and secular were in array, necessitating a kind that wasn't bound to form, that being the fantasy (fantasia, fancy, et al), also originating in the 16th century during Le Roy's lifetime. Fantasies (ideas) which applied to such as didn't quite fit established proper forms were, in a sense, a little like free verse, free jazz or the improvisational preamble with which a guitarist might warm up before breaking into a tune. A fantasy might also be missing all the notes through the performance of a composition, which I myself can readily do.

Presumed from 'Premier Livre de Tablature de Luth'   No.26

Bourgo(n)gne is the wine region of Burgundy

From 1551 to 1598 Le Roy published 22 books of which 13 survive. Five books featured instruction and tablature for guitar, five for lute, two for mandore and five for cittern. Adding later editions and English translations wrought 16 volumes on guitar and 17 on lute [Guitare Renaissance]. Le Roy also wrote numerous chansons and airs, the latter originating contemporaneous to Le Roy in the latter 16th century. Le Roy's 1571 'Airs de cour miz sur le luth' ('Court Airs for the Lute') much occasioned a transition from the chanson to the air (du cour) in popular French music, also a favorite style in England. Le Roy also pushed the success of composer, Orlande de Lassus, introducing him to the royal court of Charles IX in 1571 and publishing his work in 1576 and 1584. Le Roy died in Paris in 1598.