BaL 12.01.13 - The music of John Dowland

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Building a Library 9.30am
Tess Knighton with a survey of recordings of music by John Dowland




... Are we really going to have "Sting"?


Top recommendation of Songs:
DOWLAND: Unquiet thoughts; Say love if ever thou didst find; Sorrow stay; Away with these self-loving lads; Fantasia No. 7 from A Varietie of Lute Lessons; Come away, come, sweet love; Sleep wayward thoughts; Come heavy sleep; Flow my teares (Lacrimæ); I must complain; If my complaints could passions move; Captain Digorie Pipers Galliard; What if I never speed?; Now, O now, I needs must part; In darkness let me dwell
c/w BRITTEN: Nocturnal after John Dowland Op. 70 Mark Padmore (tenor), Elizabeth Kenny (lute) HYPERION CDA67648 (CD)
Top recommendation of Instrumental music:
DOWLAND: Lachrimae Antiquae; Lachrimae Antiquae Novae; Lachrimae Gementes; Lachrimae Tristes; Lachrimae Coactae; Lachrimae Amantis; Lachrimae Verae; Semper Dowland Semper Dolens; Sir Henry Umptons Funerall; M. John Langtons Pavan; The King Of Denmarks Galiard; The Earle Of Essex Galiard; Sir John Souch’s Galiard; M. Henry Noell’s Galiard; M. Giles Hoby’s Galiard; M. Nicholas Gryffith’s Galiard; M. Thomas Collier’s Galiard; Captaine Piper’s Galiard; M. Bucton’s Galiard; Mrs Nichols Almand; M. George Whitehead’s Almand
Fretwork, Christopher Wilson (lute)
VIRGIN CLASSICS VC5450052 (download)
Top recommendation of music for solo lute:
John Dowland – Complete Lute Works volumes 1 – 5 DOWLAND: lute works
DEBUSSY: Pelleas and Melisande Christopher Cook 20/04/2013
DOWLAND: Survey Tess Knighton 12/01/2013
312
Paul O’Dette (lute and orpharion)
HARMONIA MUNDI HMU907160-64 (download)

[Roehre]

Building a Library 9.30am
Tess Knighton with a survey of recordings of music by John Dowland

... Are we really going to have "Sting"?

Hopefully: as the one to be avoided at all costs

[verismissimo]

Aside from a handful of songs recorded by Kirkby and Rooley, the only Dowland I have is an ancient Nonesuch LP - "Songs & Ayres", with Jantina Noorman, Grayston Burgess, Wilfred Brown, Gerald English and Christopher Keyte.

With vocal ensemble including April Cantelo and Janet Baker!

Was this JB's first recording? I haven't listened to it in years.

Time for something more modern!

[silvestrione]

Why oh why did I ever get rid of my Consort of Musicke 4th book of songs, A Pilgrim's Solace, when I was reducing my LPs to a few favourites? It's a disgrace, anyway, that there's no current CD of this supreme English masterpiece.

[Richard Tarleton]

Marvellous. A Tess K BAL is always good value. Dowland well represented on my shelves - the Consort of Musicke's Collected Works (across 12 discs - Rooley and co.), 2 of the 3 versions of the complete lute works, which take up 4 CDs (North, Lindberg - not O'Dette, so far), and multiple recitals for voice, viols, lute and guitar. My very first Dowland disc was Julian Bream's 1967 "Dances of Dowland", and I heard him play the lute many times, inc with Pears - but lute technique, and the instruments themselves, have changed considerably since Bream's pioneering work, with a rediscovery of authentic technique and construction. Lots to be found on this in the Lute Society's Lute News.

I'd be very surprised if the fastidious Ms Knighton refers to Sting.

[Richard Tarleton]

Why oh why did I ever get rid of my Consort of Musicke 4th book of songs, A Pilgrim's Solace, when I was reducing my LPs to a few favourites? It's a disgrace, anyway, that there's no current CD of this supreme English masterpiece.

yours for £47 - the Consort of Musicke's complete works, inc. Pilgrims Solace (on CDs 4-5) .

[gurnemanz]

Aside from a handful of songs recorded by Kirkby and Rooley, the only Dowland I have is an ancient Nonesuch LP - "Songs & Ayres", with Jantina Noorman, Grayston Burgess, Wilfred Brown, Gerald English and Christopher Keyte.

This box covers the ground pretty well.
The Parley of Instruments are well worth having in Lachrimae now on Hyperion's cheap label
I have a soft spot for Peter Pears and Julian Bream who include half a dozen Dowland songs on this classic compilation.

[silvestrione]

yours for £47 - the Consort of Musicke's complete works, inc. Pilgrims Solace (on CDs 4-5) .

Ah! My searches did not bring that up. Could not afford that just now. Still amazed that no one else seems to have done a more recent version. There are illuminating discussions of some of these pieces in Wilfred Mellers' s Harmonious Meeting (ch. 9) and Music in Society.

[verismissimo]

This box covers the ground pretty well.
The Parley of Instruments are well worth having in Lachrimae now on Hyperion's cheap label
I have a soft spot for Peter Pears and Julian Bream who include half a dozen Dowland songs on this classic compilation.

Thanks, gurnemanz. I'd like to have the Consort box, but

a) £47?
b) 12 CDs of Sweet Sorrow?

Too much on both counts, I fear.

[johnb]

My very first Dowland disc was Julian Bream's 1967 "Dances of Dowland", and I heard him play the lute many times, inc with Pears - but lute technique, and the instruments themselves, have changed considerably since Bream's pioneering work, with a rediscovery of authentic technique and construction. Lots to be found on this in the Lute Society's Lute News.

That LP was my first Downland recording too and I have recently transferred it to digital (a FLAC file). I'm still very fond of the recording even though it can hardly be called 'authentic' - there is something about Bream's approach (his phrasing, sense of both line and pulse, etc) that surpasses such considerations, at least for me. In fact the ability to maintain the musical line and the pulse of Dowland's lute pieces is something I often find lacking in many lutenists. I suspect this is partly because it is much more difficult to 'see' the music with lute tablature that with 'modern' musical notation.

[Richard Tarleton]

That LP was my first Downland recording too and I have recently transferred it to digital (a FLAC file). I'm still very fond of the recording even though it can hardly be called 'authentic' - there is something about Bream's approach (his phrasing, sense of both line and pulse, etc) that surpasses such considerations, at least for me. In fact the ability to maintain the musical line and the pulse of Dowland's lute pieces is something I often find lacking in many lutenists. I suspect this is partly because it is much more difficult to 'see' the music with lute tablature that with 'modern' musical notation.

I totally agree about Bream's performances, and about tablature, which I've tried but find counter-intuitive. I have grown to appreciate the delicate sound of the "modern", i.e authentic, lute - as opposed to the great beasts Bream played - and the playing with fingertips rather than nails, as of course Bream did. (I've been to two recitals, including an all-Dowland one, where Jakob Lindberg played his reconstructed 1590's Sixtus Rauwolf lute).

Bream himself speaks very highly of Nigel North. North and Lindberg both feature on the Consort of Musicke discs, but the standard of their playing has improved immeasurably in the intervening years - some of the solo lute performances, especially those of the other performers featured on that set, just don't cut it these days.

[jean]

I'd be very surprised if the fastidious Ms Knighton refers to Sting.

He managed to squeeze into Catherine Bott's survey (with John Potter and James Gilchrist) of the early days of the tenor voice on the Early Music Show today - they played a bit, but none of them made any comment at all except to say that his singing voice was very like his speaking voice, and that he seemed to be very close-miked.

.

[Richard Tarleton]

He managed to squeeze into Catherine Bott's survey (with John Potter and James Gilchrist) of the early days of the tenor voice - they played a bit, but none of them made any comment at all except to say that his singing voice was very like his speaking voice, and that he seemed to be very close-miked.

Yes I heard that!

[PJPJ]

Building a Library 9.30am
Tess Knighton with a survey of recordings of music by John Dowland







... Are we really going to have "Sting"?

I was going to say mention of Sting's Dowland recording provokes waspish comments but have decided not to.

I'll make a beeline for the coat-rack......

[ardcarp]

I hope the work of the late lamented lutenist Robert Spencer will feature. He worked a lot with Deller and even (I think) Janet Baker. He was not only a player but took a keen academic interest in the subject, amassing quite a collection of lute music and songs in m/s.