From the reign of Henry VIII and onwards, the lute and its practitioners enjoyed the patronage of the very highest English society. The Royal enthusiasm for the lute influenced the aristocracy, and an English style of lute music was established.

A large corpus of solo music has been preserved, mostly in manuscript sources, including obvious candidates, such as Dowland, as well as pieces by the enigmatic Cuthbert Hely, whose work only survives in one single lute book.

One of the foremost exponents of the lute and this repertoire, Jakob Lindberg performs the programme on what is possibly the world's oldest lute in playing condition, built c. 1590