York goes Online

[ardcarp]

The York Early Music Festival has apparently been taking place online:

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/18508849.yorks-early-music-festival-go-online/

So this Sunday (2nd August) we have...


Matthew Wadsworth at the York Early Music Festival
The Early Music Show

From the 2020 York Early Music Online Festival, lutenist Matthew Wadsworth plays music by Dowland, Piccinini, Giovanni Kapsperger, and Francesco da Milano.

The lute and its larger cousin the theorbo have a long association with fantasy, whether in the improvisatory works of de Visee and Piccinini or the more formal contrapuntal creations of John Dowland and Robert Johnson. Matthew Wadsworth brings these strands together, along with Echoes in Air, a new piece written specially for him by Laura Snowden.


and next Sunday (9th August)...


A Delightful Thing: Music and Readings from a Melancholy Man
The Early Music Show

From this year's York Early Music Online Festival, countertenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny perform songs, instrumental pieces and readings by that most dolorous of Elizabethan composers - John Dowland.

“Sorrow was there made fair / And passion wise, tears a delightful thing”. Dowland knew that in love, the only thing sweeter than happiness was sorrow. Few living interpreters understand his music more profoundly than Iestyn Davies and he’s devised an evening of poetry, music and drama for voice and lute to explore a composer for whom a single teardrop can hold a universe of emotion.

[ardcarp]

It was a Delightful Thing! Two artists at the top of their form. Et non semper dolens. The Dowland flagship dolor was beautifully done in Flow my tears, I saw my Lady weep, etc. But the jolly ones were sent at a cracking pace...a pace, it has to be said, that would have probably surprised the likes of Deller and Dupré,

If anything, Elizabeth Kenny's playing was a bit over-ornamented at times, and in the faster items sometimes rather 'driven'. I always try to remember that Dowland was probably accompanied himself. But, EK knows far more about it than I do. And the readings were so well-chosen and delivered by Iestyn.

Very much worth a listen.

[I cut my teeth as a young tenor on these lute songs, being lucky enough to have been taught by a then exponent, René Soames. I also had the pleasure of singing them with lutenist, the late Robert Spencer.]

[edashtav]

It was a Delightful Thing! Two artists at the top of their form. Et non semper dolens. The Dowland flagship dolor was beautifully done in Flow my tears, I saw my Lady weep, etc. But the jolly ones were sent at a cracking pace...a pace, it has to be said, that would have probably surprised the likes of Deller and Dupré,

If anything, Elizabeth Kenny's playing was a bit over-ornamented at times, and in the faster items sometimes rather 'driven'. I always try to remember that Dowland was probably accompanied himself. But, EK knows far more about it than I do. And the readings were so well-chosen and delivered by Iestyn.

Very much worth a listen.

[I cut my teeth as a young tenor on these lute songs, being lucky enough to have been taught by a then exponent, René Soames. I also had the pleasure of singing them with lutenist, the late Robert Spencer.]

I agree: thank you ardcarp for your perspective on this moving recital.

[oddoneout]

A well-crafted programme and a satisfying listen.