Dowland and His Legacy: 19-23 February

[doversoul1]

Monday
Like many writers, musicians and artists of Elizabethan times, the composer and virtuoso lute player John Dowland imbued his art-form with an exquisite melancholy. The beauty and simplicity of the melodic lines he created enchanted not only his contemporaries but also composers and performers of recent years. Donald Macleod introduces a selection of Dowland's own songs and lute pieces plus the first of two pieces by Benjamin Britten featured this week, based on one of Dowland's most popular songs and written for another virtuoso - Julian Bream.

Mrs Winter's Jump (arr Claire van Kampen)
Musicians of Shakespeare's Globe
Flow my tears
Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Thomas Dunford (lute)
My Lady Hunsdon's Puffe; Sir John Smith's Almaine; Farwell
Julian Bream (lute)
Sleep wayward thoughts; Come away, come sweet love; Come again, sweet love doth now invite
Consort of Musicke
Come heavy sleep
Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Thomas Dunford (lute)
Britten: Nocturnal
Sean Shibe (guitar).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rx28j

[Richard Tarleton]

I hadn't noticed this, dover, as I'm going to be unable to listen to almost any of it (unless a week later....) but a promising looking week of programmes.

I heard Julian Bream play these two Dowland pieces on 25 January 1973 in the QEH in a recital to coincide with the publication of Diana Poulton and Basil Lam's Collected Dowland Lute Music - I was sitting in the middle of the front row with my mother, whose ashes we are scattering next week. I heard Ian Watt plat the Britten Nocturnal in the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, on the 50th anniversary of the first performance by Julian Bream (he's also recorded it). The Sean Shibe CD is also outstanding

Looking through the week I have a good few of the performances being played, and have heard Jakob Lindberg (several times) and Paul O'Dette live. I must confess to an allergy to both Iestyn Davies's and Mark Padmore's Dowland, and don't like Sting's attempt although full credit to him for doing it. I'll catch up selectively, skipping some of it

[Padraig]

Thanks for the reminder, doversoul. I like Dowland's music.

Sorry to read your sad news, Richard. Sorry for your trouble.

I'm glad you gave Sting the bit of credit he deserves - there aren't too many of us!.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sorry to read your sad news, Richard.

Indeed - I hope the ceremony goes as peacefully as these things can, Richard.

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks Padraig and Ferney - a small family gathering, a moment of reflection, closure - close to the Menai Strait and where she was born 97 years ago. As is often the way with these things the end was neither unexpected nor unwelcome. I have a vivid memory of that all-Dowland concert - as we were in the middle of the front row I'd advised my mother not to wear anything too eye-catching so as not to distract Mr Bream's attention at crucial moments . He was playing one of his (by today's HIP standards) heavyweight lutes, with fixed metal frets, and playing with his fingernails with his guitar-based technique. It's a very different sound-world to that of Messrs North, O'Dette and Lindbergh who feature later in the week, although all acknowledge their debt to him. It is still possible to play the lute with nails - in that Aldeburgh Festival concert in 2014, the excellent Ian Watt accompanied a counter-tenor on the lute in the first half, beautifully, before performing Britten's Nocturnal on the guitar in the second (I was sitting, where else, in the front row). Very much in the Bream tradition.

Good that they are coupling Nocturnal (a work which Britten scholars tend to ignore) with the Dowland song it's based on, Come heavy sleep. Forumites wishing to do some homework might like to read this excellent essay by Stephen Goss on Come, heavy sleep: motive and metaphor in Britten's Nocturnal, opus 70.

Looking at Monday's programme, My Lady Hunsdon's Puff is one of my party pieces (on the guitar , last performed in public in 2013 to a couple of packed village halls - 60 people apiece ). Other highlights during the week: Tuesday is topped and tailed by the Frog Galliard and the Percy Grainger version of the song for which Dowland recycled the tune of the Frog, Now o now I needs must part - Caliban has been working on this piece on the piano . Lots of O'Dette and Lindberg on Tuesday....Wednesday features Nigel North....Thursday goes a bit off-piste with Sting, but recovers with the fabulous Phantasm version of Lachrimae (see that excellent recent BAL)....A good mixture on Friday, including three of my party pieces . The Earl of Derby's Galliard begins on the second beat of the second bar, an unusual opening for Dowland found only in one other piece, the Melancholy Galliard. Diana Poulton describes Lady Rich's Galliard as "an exceptionally beautiful and tender galliard in G major", which indeed it is. And last but not least, the piece which Bream played as an encore in that 1973 recital, Tarletones Riserrectione, , his lament for Queen Elizabeth's favourite comic actor, and indeed the real-life inspiration for Yorick in the gravedigger scene in Hamlet. Played faster, as Nigel North points out, it becomes, appropriately enough, a jig.

It looks, in short, an excellently put together week, and one I shall enjoy catching up with.

[doversoul1]

I am very glad to hear that all was peaceful for your mother and your family.
And many thanks for your excellent guide. Very much looking forward to listening to the programmes.

[BBMmk2]

Oh this is rather good! Thanks Dover!

[Serial_Apologist]

Lovely music, dovers. Thanks for starting this thread.

[doversoul1]

Richard
What was the instrument Paul O’Dette played on today’s (Tuesday) programme alongside the lute?

I wasn’t too sure about the Scottish-ised Dowland but very much enjoyed the lute pieces.

[vinteuil]

What was the instrument Paul O’Dette played on today’s (Tuesday) programme alongside the lute?
.

... I think it was an orpharion -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpharion

.

[doversoul1]

... I think it was an orpharion -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpharion

.

Thank you!
This looks/sounds interesting

https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/products/8042333--renaissance-duets

[MickyD]

Talking of lute duets, this is one of the earliest CDs I bought and I have always cherished it...really great music-making between Lindberg and O'Dette. And a fine BIS recording.

[ostuni]

That Rooley/Tyler duet recording is going back a bit! 1972 (despite what it says on the Presto site...).

[BBMmk2]

Thanks MickyD, I saw that on Spotify. Will have a look later. I like listening to this late evening.

[MickyD]

Thanks MickyD, I saw that on Spotify. Will have a look later. I like listening to this late evening.

I hope you will get it, bbm..it is a ravishing disc.