The repertoire of music for lute duet has a long history from the instrument's early development in medieval times through its swan song in Mozart's day.

This recording contains a cross-section of lute duets taken from manuscripts and printed books of tablature, published from the early Renaissance period up to the early Baroque era. Chronologically, the earliest duets are the La Spagna and Canona by the Italian lutenist Francesco Canova da Milano, and the latest are the two courantes and almand by the English composer William Lawes.

As the medieval era drew to a close, lutenists began to perform in a new way: two lutenists performing together. One lutenist would generally play the superius (top) line from a well-known piece of vocal music and add spontaneous and virtousic improvisations in the form of passaggi, or rapid scalar passages to the part. The other lutenist, called the tenorista, would play the supporting role performing the generally slower moving tenor and contratenor voice parts, playing either with a quill or bare fingers. This was the beginning of the lute duet.

Toward the end of the 15th Century as the age of Renaissance polyphony came into full bloom, the lute became the preiminent musical instrument. Composers for the early Renaissance lute played increasingly without a quill, taking full advantage of the new finger-style lute to perform polyphony of two, three, and even four voices on a single lute.

Toward the end of the recording, one can detect the new vocabulary of the Baroque era in Piccinini's Toccata a diu liuti, William Lawes' short set of dances, and Besard's setting of a Branle de Village. It seems appropriate to close with Branle de Village, a French dance from a French source. Both the English and the Italians largely set aside the lute as a solo and duetting instrument in the later 17th century. It was the French who carried that torch through the remainder of the 17th century.