Sofie Vanden Eynde writes of her newest release: “Would it be possible to articulate the inner reality of a burnout musically: to make a burnout audible, tangible, understandable and, who knows, avoidable? The result is Vanishing Point / Verdwijntijd, an autobiographical recital, a musical narrative, a journey: somewhere between fragile comfort and cautious happiness. Vanishing Point / Verdwijntijd can be listened to in different ways: not only as a lute recital, but also as a radio play with voice, lute and soundscapes.”

The Renaissance composer John Dowland was the foremost lutenist and lute song composer of his generation. While renowned as the master of musical melancholy, he was reputedly a cheerful man, though disappointed by his long failure to find employment.

Classical Music

DOWLAND Songs and Lute Solos. PURCELL Songs and Lute Solos • Emma Kirkby (sop); Jakob Lindberg (lt) • BIS CD 1725 (75:19 Text and Translation)


It is almost superfluous to add a review to the header, for this disc provides exactly what the listing promises. There are nine songs and five solo lute pieces by Dowland, and seven songs and seven solo lute pieces by Purcell, culled from various sources, in performances by two of the greatest artists of our time that simply are beyond exquisite in every way. All is subtlety, refinement, delicacy, intimacy, and deeply penetrating expressiveness, in which every word, every inflection, and every chord takes its share and lightly carries its burden. Above all, it is art that is utterly natural and free from self-conscious artifice. If somehow you have never broached this repertoire or these performers before now, look no further for a starting point and take the plunge immediately. Those with prior acquaintance will need no further urging from me to regard this as an essential acquisition. The recorded sound is fairly close, with a pleasant and not excessive degree of warmth and reverberation. Intelligent program notes and full texts are provided. Highest possible recommendation, and an immediate nominee for the Classical Hall of Fame.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

Classical Music

Nigel North' Dowland Lute Edition has gained him a garland of critical accolades: "A collector' item", "a remarkable performance of wonderful music", "North' sweet-toned playing is both unfailingly musical and highly imaginative.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

*** This single-layer stereo SACD can ONLY be played back on an SACD player. ***

Ultra Extended Playing Time: More than 4 hours of music on 1 SACD!

This pioneering recording, which was first released in 1995 as a set of four conventional CDs, contains the complete solo lute pieces ascribed to John Dowland. As opposed to the composer's lute songs and instrumental dances, which Dowland himself carefully prepared for publication, his lute solos have survived in much less reliable versions. Jakob Lindberg, student and successor of Dowland specialist Diana Poulton as lute professor at the Royal College of Music in London, brought all of his expertise to bear in preparing the scores and choosing among variant versions for his recordings, and also wrote the informative liner notes included in this edition. Dowland's solo lute music is extraordinarily varied and ranges from light frivolous pieces to profound works expressing the darkest melancholy. It is characterized by an uncommon tunefulness and many of the pieces were given texts to become lute songs, one example being his famous pavan Lachrimæ which he also published as the song Flow my teares. This also applies to several of the many galliards - a genre which also shows a wonderful diversity: extrovert dances inspired by 16th-century 'battle pieces' but also sublime, introvert and sweet-sounding pieces such as the Melancholy Galliard. In order to perform these 92 pieces, Dowland's testament to lutenists, Jakob Lindberg uses three different instruments, first and foremost an 8-course lute but also a 10-course lute and an 8-course orpharion.

In John Dowland’s both intimate and expressive songs it’s all about ‘speaking harmony’. This is what vocalist David Munderloh and lutenist Julian Behr, in their merging of voice with lute, attempt to impart as they search for the composer’s essence in this album of select songs from this Renaissance master, interspersed with a handful of instrumental lute solos. Currently residing in Basel, Switzerland, American tenor and former Chanticleer member David Munderloh's repertoire includes music of several musical eras, from medieval to 19th c. lieder as well as modern contemporary.

Classical Music

Welcome to the bewitching world of Circus Dinogad in which Welsh contralto Hilary Summers, the Dutch theorbo & bass clarinet duo Mike Fentross & Maarten Ornstein, and the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam converge in a fusion of musical traditions.

Alberto Rasi and his prestigious Accademia Strumentale continue their journey through the masterpieces of the European Baroque music. Here they join forces with the young star of the lute Jadran Duncombe to confront another Baroque milestone: John Dowland’s Lachrymae. First time ever the players are recorded around a table where the printed music lies. This allows – just like for polyphony singers around a score – a perfect communication among the musicians. On Bach: Toccata Alte Musik: It is rare to hear the "Art of the Fugue" so lively and undisguised! Just listen! On Rameau, Fanfare wrote: "This is an excellent disc and one that should entertain and entice Baroque music lovers."

‘London, April 1604. With the freshly printed partbooks of his Lachrimae under his arm, John Dowland walks from the printing house to his home in Fetter Lane. He should have been back in Denmark long ago, but for the moment all his thoughts are on the new publication he is carrying, his latest and most ambitious work to date: a complete cycle of instrumental music, twenty-one dances, honourably dedicated to Anne of Denmark, Queen of England.’ For Dowland has just completed one of the greatest masterpieces of Renaissance music. He had left England to enter the service of the Danish court, disappointed at not being appointed court composer to Elizabeth I, but he seems to have made the best of all his setbacks to compose this magnificent collection of purely instrumental works, much of it bathed in the melancholy typical of late sixteenth-century England.

Musicall Humors – a collective of the finest gambists of their generation – performs the complete set of pavans, galliards and ‘almands’, grouped into suites, each with its own character. A character inspired by the music, but reinforced here by the changing composition of the consort and the players taking turns to perform the ‘top line’, so that each musician’s personal playing style gives each piece a specific colour.

REVIEWS:

Dunford immerses the five-person gamba ensemble led by Julien Léonard and Lucile Boulanger in a rich and often extremely fragile-seeming web of voices and moods with a composure and sovereignty that moves and inspires. Everything breathes in the most wonderfully sonorous interplay, nothing groaning excessively. And when they dance, they maintain their posture and dignity like a dream.

-- ConcertoNet

We are faced with an absolutely referential recording, of intense and unprecedented beauty. Musicall Humors offers us the complete collection, but in a sequence of pavans followed by galliards, which refreshes our ears with the contrast, compared to the usual arrangement.

-- Scherzo