John Dowland (1563-1626)
Songs, Ayres and Dances
rec. 1949-2021
Erato 2173297390 [10 CDs: 657]
2026 is the 400th anniversary of Dowland’s death, and so Erato has staked an early claim in the reissue stakes with this 10-CD box. Though it covers the years from 1949 to 2021, in truth this early date (actually 1949-53) relates only to the famous four songs that Alfred Deller and Desmond Dupré recorded. The rest comes from the Erato, Virgin and EMI back catalogue, all now subsumed under the Erato umbrella. One small detail to note is that, as the Deller items suggest, these are not straight CD reissues. Some have had extra items added.
That’s the case with the first disc, the Hilliard Ensemble’s album of Ayres, recorded in 1978 to which two songs performed by Pro Cantione Antiqua, directed by Ian Partridge, and three songs by The King’s Singers, with lutenist Robert Spencer, bring the disc to 76 minutes. The Hilliards made this disc for EMI and it’s aged hardly at all, so deft and penetrating is the singing and Paul Hillier’s direction. The sequence of Lamentatio Henrici Noel, so nobly melancholic, is a particular highlight of this disc, even though the sequence offers a slightly forbidding look. Incidentally, Lynne Dawson was soprano in the ensemble along with David James, Rogers Covey-Crump, John Potter, and Paul Hillier with Stephen Stubbs lutenist, and colleagues.
The ensemble Virelai, led by mezzo-soprano Catherine King with Jacob Heringman on various lutes and the cittern, recorded their album called ‘Treasures from my Minde’ for Virgin in 1996-97. It consists of songs and instrumental pieces. Though there is some repertoire overlap with King’s later Naxos recording with the Rose Consort of Viols, it’s a distinct achievement in its own right, the selection of songs from the three Bookes of Songes, as well as three items from A Pilgrimes Solace nicely balancing Heringman’s selection of four pieces from Lachrimae.
The third volume broadens the geographical scope of the box by introducing the Erato CD of ‘Farewell, Unkind’, a sequence of songs and dances performed in 1995 by The Boston Camerata and Joel Cohen. Their disc is divided schematically into chapters, opening with an invocation, ‘Be thou, O God, exalted high’, better known to thee and me as ‘All People That on Earth Do Dwell’ or the Old Hundredth. Talking of thee and me, this group made a point of employing what purports to be original pronunciation that tends to turn Dowland into an upmarket yokel. I have to say a little of this kind of thing goes a long way for me.
Thank God for Emma Kirkby on CD 4 and her splendidly unaffected, emotively cooly reticent album of 1988 called ‘The English Orpheus’ with Anthony Rooley playing lute, as well as the orpharion. Kirkby’s directness and vocal purity don’t always strike some listeners as appropriate but hearing her sing ‘Me, me and none but me’ is always memorable. The recital was made a decade after the Consort of Musicke recorded all three Books of Songs – Kirkby, John York Skinner, Martyn Hill, David Thomas and a crack instrumental team with Rooley. Erato has added the four Deller songs, recorded between 1949 and 1953 to this disc.
Discs 4 and 5 present two tenors. The first is Charles Daniels with lutenist David Miller in their 1997 recital called ‘Sweet Stay Awhile’. Daniels has exceptional clarity of diction and is especially convincing in the more interior settings. I find him excessively eager in ‘Me, me and none but me’ for example, where, unlike Kirkby, his desire for death is unrestrained by any desire to tarry. But it’s being picky just to focus on this one song. The album is completed by Philippe Jaroussky and guitarist Thibaut Garcia singing three songs from 2020-21 from their album ‘Á sa guitarre’.
In 1987, for Virgin, Nigel Rogers and lutenist Paul O’Dette recorded ‘Songs for tenor and lute’. It’s interesting to compare and contrast the two tenors in the four songs they both sing in their respective discs. Daniels is the more precise, emotionally sparing performer, Rogers somewhat more vocally and emotively generous and inclined to be more expressive – he has a habit of allowing his vibrato to swell sometimes. I like them both and am delighted to find them comrades-in-arms here with their elite lutenists.
Fretwork’s ex-Virgin disc of ‘Lachrimae’ is self-recommending. Along with the Lachrimae, a sequence of seven pieces that function almost as variations and are central to the repertoire, they also perform a contrasting sequence of Dances that lightens and inflects the melancholy atmosphere significantly. Countertenor Michael Chance is announced in the track listing as singing on tracks 8 to 23 but admirers should know that he only sings on two tracks – the remainder are Galliards and Almands. To be precise he sings on Lasso vita mia, mi fa morire and Goe nightly cares, from the CD of the same name.
Instrumental Dowland continues in CD 8 with The Early Music Consort of London and David Munrow which derives from 1973-76 sessions for EMI and the examples here come from the 2 LPs issued at the time, and subsequently reissued, though alas without the sumptuous book that came with them. Munrow’s sessions with The Morely Consort consist here of four pieces and date from 1971. The CD actually begins with the sober, severe Gustav Leonhardt, either solo or with his Consort, along with a solo harpsichord performance of Lachrimae verae by Jean Rondeau. Some will know that Erato has very recently issued a box of Louis Couperin’s works played by Rondeau. This CD ends with two less well remembered guitarists, both Uruguayan – Óscar Cáceres, who recorded his four pieces in 1968 in Paris for the album ‘Vihuelists, Lutenists and Guitarists’ – good to have – and Betho Davezac, whose more extensive selection comes from his album ‘Elizabethan Music’, recorded in 1973.
Christopher Wilson recorded the album with Fretwork on CD 7 but turns up again on CD 9 for the 1990 album ‘Rosa: Elizabethan Lute Music’. As the name suggests, this is a survey of the times, rather than focusing on Dowland, but it does include three Dowland pieces as well as others by a variety of composers – Peter Philips, Francis Cutting, and Alfonso Ferrabosco among them. At the end of this CD we have one piece by Pro Cantione Antiqua and five by James Bowman and lutenist Robert Spencer, dating from 1971.
The other compilation album is the last, in which The Boston Camerata and Joel Cohen cast a briefly panoramic look over Elizabethan composers under various headings – ‘What then is love?’ for example, which corrals pieces by Thomas Ford, Philip Rosseter and John Danyel – and which include several pieces by Dowland. Once again, they’re at it with the pronunciation but the instrumental works go well, especially a piece like Anthony Holborne’s The honeysuckle.
There are no texts in the booklet, and none of the individual CD notes have been retained. Instead, there’s a four-page introduction to Dowland in English, German and French. This is a worthwhile box that manages to generate a high level of hits and few out-and-out misses.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
CD 1 Ayres│ Hilliard Ensemble │ Pro Cantione Antiqua, Ian Partridge │ The King’s Singers
CD 2 Treasures from my minde. Songs and instrumental pieces │ Virelai
CD 3 Farewell, Unkind. Songs & Dances │ The Boston Camerata and Joel Cohen
CD 4 The English Orpheus – Songs for voice and lute Emma Kirkby ∙ Anthony Rooley │ Alfred Deller ∙ Desmond Dupré
CD 5 “Sweet stay awhile” – Songs and Lute Pieces Charles Daniels ∙ David Miller │ Philippe Jaroussky ∙ Thibaut Garcia
CD 6 Songs for tenor and lute Nigel Rogers ∙ Paul O’Dette ∙ Anthony Bailes ∙ Jordi Savall
CD 7 Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares Pavans │ Dances from Lachrimae │ Fretwork ∙ Christopher Wilson ∙ Michael Chance
CD 8 Instrumental Works Gustav Leonhardt │ Jean Rondeau │ David Munrow │ Óscar Cáceres │ Betho Davezac
DOWLAND & HIS CONTEMPORARIES
CD 9 Rosa: Elizabethan Lute Music │Christopher Wilson │ Elizabethan Lute Songs │James Bowman ∙ Robert Spencer
CD 10 What then is love? An Elizabethan Songbook │The Boston Camerata & Joel Cohen
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