I recently (April 2021) received a pleasant surprise in my email—an audio recording of a musical piece, a pavan, written by William Stanley for the orpharion (see for example here for an orpharion). My correspondent, Mike Emmans Dean, had not only tracked down the piece (which was included in a 1624 publication of Francis Pilkington, "A Second Set of Madrigals"), but, as Mike puts it:
I entered the original lute tablature [see the illustration in this appendix] into Finale, to hear it. I didn't understand the notation too well being a keyboard player, so I also transcribed it for modern guitar. In the playback a virtual steel string guitar and sitar are heard together to substitute for the amazingly resonant orpharion. A performer would supply the phrasing and articulation that the unedited score lacks.
I had tried to find this some years earlier but couldn't—which is just as well because I would not have known what to do with it.
I include this in my web pages, even though it does not address the authorship question directly, because it does show something about Derby's knowledge of music, a knowledge that Shake-speare clearly had, given his frequent, easy, and correct usage of musical terminology.
So, many thanks to Mike. Enjoy.
The ".mp3" file is here , the original lute tablature is shown below.
