Classical Music

John Dowland was the most famous English lutenist composer and his considerable reputation during his lifetime extended across Europe as a result of his extensive travels and appointments at several continental courts. In the address "To the reader" in his song book A Pilgrimes Solace published in 1612 he recorded that "being I am now entered into the fiftieth year of mine age" which means he was born in or around 1563. By 1588, when he was twenty-five, he was already listed amongst English musicians worthy of honor in Dr. John Case's Apologia musices and was again listed as one of England's greatest musicians in Francis Meres Palladis Tamia of 1598, but had to wait until 1612 to gain the appointment in the English court that he so much desired. Paul Beier lives in Milan, Italy, and teaches lute at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado. Alongside his concert and teaching activity, he also studies and researches historical sources of the lute repertoire. His recordings have received prizes and awards in the specialized international press.

Classical Music

Classical Music

•In this quartet the baroque cello and the guitar form a harmonious base upon which the voice and saxophone unfold. Both take up the melodies alone and together, the sax breaks free and improvises with John Dowland's wonderful music. The cello too gives an impressive rendering of its singing possibilities. Between the singing there are four fragments for solo guitar by the English expressionist Reginald Smith-Brindle, which create a harmonious bridge between the individual songs.

This recording devoted to Dowland seems to open a door onto a secret garden, one tended and cultivated by two artists already well known for opera and song recitals that distill the chamber music principle into it's most intimate essence of expressive sound: soprano Mariana Flores, and lutenist Hopkinson Smith. Here they give us a Dowland programme straight from the heart, drawing on five of the composer's volumes of 'Songs or Ayres' printed in London between 1597 and 1612, laying bare Dowland's ecstatic and tortured soul as it oscillates between all the different states of melancholy love.

"•The Brussels-based Hathor Consort, founded 2011, explores consort music stretching from the Renaissance to the Baroque era, using diverse instrumental combinations, with the viola da gamba as a starting point. • For this debut recording, the ensemble has chosen a pièce de résistance of the consort repertoire, the melancholic Lachrimae, or Seven Tears collection of John Dowland (1563-1626)."

From the four Books of Songs that appeared between 1597 and 1612, Hanna Thyssen and Susanne Peuker ('Fortune's Musicke') selected 15 of Dowland's most beautiful songs, weaving them together with several lute pieces into an atmospheric Dowland homage. It documents his great compositional mastery, and his instinct for unpretentious melodies and subtle text settings.

Classical Music

The Italian Gambe di Legno has evolved into one of the leading ensembles of it's kind in recent years. Originally founded as a consort of viols, the ensemble has grown to include an ensemble of vocalists, instrumentalists and choir.

John Dowland (1563–1626) is recognized as the greatest English composer of lute music and songs. Michael Butten presents a collection of the composer’s most popular and beautiful songs arranged for the classical guitar. A whole album of Dowland performed on classical guitar is rare, usually heard on the lute, so FHR are pleased to be able to present this release. In this recording, Butten plays with a very beautiful sound, incredible colors, lovely melodic phrasing and immaculate control of tone, which draws you right in. This is a spellbinding album, wonderfully recorded. Born in Berkshire, Michael Butten studied at Junior Academy, where he twice won the Lower Strings Prize, before being awarded a scholarship at the Academy to continue his studies with Michael Lewin. In his first year he won the Julian Bream Prize, adjudicated by Julian Bream, and, shortly afterwards, gained the Nervi/Bodrato Prize as the youngest semi-finalist at the Michele Pittaluga Guitar Competition in Alessandria. On completing his BMus degree with first class honours, he received from the Academy one of the Regency Awards for Notable Achievement and in June 2014, as a postgraduate with a scholarship from Help Musicians UK, he became the first guitarist ever to win the R.A.M. Club Prize. He was the 1st prize winner at the 2016 Ivor Mairants Guitar Award, and is a Yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. Upon leaving the Academy in 2016 he also won the David Russell Prize.

Classical Music

Classical Music

"• “Dowland – A Game of Mirrors” is a sophisticated merging of modern jazz and English renaissance music. The French jazz guitarist/composer David Chevallier conceived this project based on the original melodies by John Dowland, and then created his own instrumental arrangements for guitar and theorbo, which give the well-known songs a completely new sound. • New acoustic jazz arrangements of Dowland Songs • Set for soprano, guitar and theorbo • Booklet in English & Frenc"

In 1597 John Dowland (1563-1626) published his first collection of music, The First Book of Songs or Airs of Four Parts with Tableture for the Lute. A groundbreaking work in several respects, not least in that it was the first published collection of English lute songs, it success was immediate, and was reprinted several times. His Second Book of Songs or Airs (1600) shows the increasingly solo nature of the lute-song, as Dowland left the first eight songs as lute solos. Soprano Maria Skiba specializes in historical performance practice with an emphasis on music from the 16th-17th c.