The special relationship between the dukes of Brunswick Lüneburg and their lutenists is the impetus for this book, which examines not only the place of lute music at a particular central German court at the turn of the seventeenth century, but also the various social functions and relational complexes in which the lute and its players participated.

In its three central chapters, this book seeks to establish the practical and symbolic uses associated with the lute at the Wolfenbüttel court. The position of the court lutenist was solidified by Duke Heinrich Julius (1564–1613), a patron of the arts with literary ambitions and achievements of his own, and maintained for over thirty years, even into the reign of his musically ambivalent son, Friedrich Ulrich (1591–1634). As a musical status symbol, the lutenist carried the princely representation beyond the narrow confines of the court in a way that Wirth likens to auditory heraldry. Detailed information gleaned from court documents shows how the Guelph dukes used lutenists as a tool to increase the prestige of their court. Throughout the 1580s, for example, the position of court lutenist was increasingly separate from other musicians, especially the court chapel. As they became more professionalized, the lutenists at the same time were increasingly confined to the narrow sphere of the patron, accompanying him personally on travels outside the realm. The physical and personal intimacy of the lutenist and patron increased during the reign of Heinrich Julius, such that by the reign of his son, Friedrich Ulrich, the position of court lutenist also implied a position of servant, at the ready and present at all times. The lutenist's presence at the side of his patron points also to the masculine space in which the instrumentalist functioned: never associated with the duchesses or children of the court, the court lutenist served as an aural marker of the intimate male space occupied by the dynastic head. The noble, and importantly quiet, instrument and its player enjoyed an unmediated closeness to the duke, and the resonant space they created around their patron contributed to his self-fashioning. No other closely related court cultivated an aural connection between prince and lute to the extent that Heinrich Julius did, which lent the lutenist even greater symbolic and heraldic quality.

The amount of material wealth spent on the court lutenist grew dramatically under Heinrich Julius and Wirth provides a concise table of remunerations across the Wolfenbüttel court from 1587 to 1626, demonstrating the outsized share afforded this position. In particular, the payments to Gregorius Huwet as court lutenist is evidence, if not of the position's import in general, then of the esteem in which this one musician in particular was held. The brief engagement of John Dowland in 1594–95 meant that the court had two outstanding lutenists at its disposal.

Wirth examines the case of Gregorius Huwet in detail in order to tease out the relationship between musician and patron. Was Huwet paid extraordinary sums of money and gifts of housing and expensive medallions because he was a star performer? Given that Huwet, unlike Dowland, published no music of his own and was never expected to play for a public audience outside one that represented the princely head, Wirth concludes that Heinrich Julius's bestowals upon Huwet might be best characterized as a fief, ensuring the lutenist's loyalty, exclusivity, and drawing him ever closer into the personal orbit of the duke. Wirth rightly questions the transactional relationship that might be assumed between patron and musician and the normatively capitalist lens through which we often evaluate the past. Under the umbrella of relational musicology, a term coined by Nicholas Cook, Georgina Born, and others, Wirth points out the greater variety of reciprocity that existed between patron and musician at the Wolfenbüttel court.

The notion of music as a relational medium is taken up in the final chapter through a close look at the festival programs of two important court events: the 1585 wedding of Heinrich Julius to Dorothea of Saxony and the visit of Christian IV in 1595. While this chapter investigates a broader range of sonic events, including fireworks, munitions, and tournament sounds, it underscores the lute as a zierlich vnd lieblich ja Nobilitiert instrument, part of the princely self-fashioning of the Guelph dukes.