John Dowland
1563–1626. British composer. in the English Renaissance tradition.
Dowland is the quintessential case where contemplative and intimate ARE the defining qualities — his lute songs and pavans are bywords for Elizabethan melancholy and introspection. Lachrimae is his masterwork; Flow My Tears was the most famous song of its era.
Signature works: Lachrimae or Seven Tears, Flow My Tears, Come Heavy Sleep, In Darkness Let Me Dwell, The Frog Galliard.
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D O W L N D R A K E
$16.99CDAntarctica
Jan 23, 2026AR 062 -
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Sacred Music From The Court Of
Two Loves- Shakespeare & Dowland / Ashcroft, Bream
This recording combines Dowland lute selections with poetry of Shakespeare.
Dowland: A Game of Mirrors
LACHRIMAE - OR SEAVEN TEARES
Dowland: Tunes Of Sad Despaire
This recording fulfills one of Dominique Visse’s life ambitions, which dates from the late 1970s and the period during which he studied and worked with Alfred Deller: to record an album of John Dowland’s songs. And who better than to record with than celebrated English viol consort Fretwork, who have made a number of historic recordings of Dowland’s music? Visse is also joined by Renaud Delaigue in rarely-performed versions of three of the songs.
Blame Not My Lute: Elizabethan Lute Music and Poetry / McFarlane, Aubry Davis
REVIEWS:
This is something of a concept album. It’s also a programme that has been toured and performed in concert many times and reaches fruition as a disc. It takes Elizabethan and Jacobean lute music and marries it to the poetry and theatre of the time. Sometimes a single track is given over to verse or a short scene from a play, spoken by Robert Aubry Davis; but also we hear a speech or lyric spoken above, as it were, lute accompaniment. This sometimes makes things difficult to judge artistically vis a vis Ronn McFarlane’s lute playing, but it’s a disc to be measured against a rather wider canvass than usual, a multi-disciplinary words and music presentation.
Most of the music is by Dowland, but there is one piece by Campion, another by Byrd and others by our old pal, Anonymous. The theatrical performances derive from Shakespeare - Henry VIII, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona - as well as Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness. There are poems by Wyatt, with which we begin and end, Robert Herrick and Samuel Daniel. Thomas D’Urfey’s wickedly naughty The Wanton Trick is here too.
As an example of a theatrical presentation it works well. Whether it has longevity on disc is a moot point, because some of the extracts are very brief, and also because the lute, played behind the voice, is demonstrably there for evocative effect. Ronn McFarlane has a number of discs to his name of lute music and is indeed a fine player. There are times when he inclined to the brusque and overly metrical - one thinks of Mrs Winter’s Jump for example; the woman in question must have been quite a motoric figure if his playing is anything to go by.
Next we have the spoken element. The method in the Wyatt ‘title track’, and others, is this. Davis speaks the first stanza, and then McFarlane joins in behind him. Note though that they were separately recorded.
The texts are printed in full, and the booklet has been nicely designed and amusingly written (by Davis). Indeed the disc is cleverly programmed.
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International
Mister Dowland's Midnight
Dowland: Pavans, Galliards And Almains / Nigel North
Includes work(s) by John Dowland. Soloist: Nigel North.
Dowland: Lute Music Vol 1 / Nigel North
Dowland: Come Away, Come Sweet Love
Orpheus In England: Dowland & Purcell: Songs And Lute Music / Kirkby, Lindberg
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
What if a day
Dowland: Complete Lute Music / Nigel North
Dowland: Consort Music & Songs / Rose Consort Of Viols
Dowland: Awake Sweet Love
Semper Dowland / Fentross
In Dowland’s words: “ingenuous profession of Musicke, which from my childhoode I have ever aymed at,... the better to attain so excellent a science”. Mike Fentross achieves this “divine science of musicke” by wooing his audience by “speaking harmony” on his sweet lute. His art entwines harmony and poetry, albeit often a melancholic art, which is then framed by the proportions of rhythm. His art teaches, stirs and delights the heart and soul of his honorable listeners in profound ways. Mike Fentross first studied with Toyohiko Satoh at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, then with Nigel North and José Miguel Moreno. He has built a solid reputation as a “continuist”, playing in renowned orchestras like Les Arts Florissants, and is much in demand in his country as well as abroad. He plays and records regularly with great European ensembles such as Capriccio Stravagante, Les Arts Florissants, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, the Harp Consort, the New London Consort and Al Ayre Espanol. In 1991 he founded La Sfera Armoniosa, a group devoted to the performance of 17th-century music. Since 1996 Mike Fentross is guest professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
Dowland
Dowland: Lachrimae or Seaven Teares
Dowland: A Fancy / Bor Zuljan

The first notes of the descending chromatic theme break the silence and it seems as if time has stopped. The listener is drawn into the world of John Dowland, the greatest lutenist of all, in a journey through multiple shades of melancholy and lucent hope. Never before had the lute sounded as expressive and colorful as in these masterful Fancies, as dynamic as in these sparkling dances: Renaissance lute music here reached its summit. Bor Zuljan explores these qualities in his debut solo recording, breathing new life into Dowland's masterpieces. Bor Zuljan (1987) is active in different musical genres and projects and searches for a synthesis of contemporary and early music, different world music traditions, jazz and improvisation. He plays guitars, different kinds of lutes, vihuela, oud, tar and other early and traditional plucked-strings instruments. The search for the connection between sound, image and word led him to collaborate in different interdisciplinary projects. He is performing regularly as soloist and with ensembles, such as Le Concert Brisé, Geneva Camerata, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Contrechamps, Vortex, in duo with Dusan Bogdanovic, as well as with his ensemble La Lyra. His projects have been presented in festivals such as the Laus Polyphoniae in Antwerpen, Oude Muziek in Utrecht, Mousiké in Bari, Festival Radovljica in Slovenia and many others. He also performed in China, Algeria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark and in Croatia.
Dowland: A Musicall Banquet / Zúñiga, Ensemble A Musicall Banquet
In 1610, the lutenist Robert Dowland, who had just turned 19, published two anthologies in quick succession that are today considered vital for our understanding of both the lute and Elizabethan vocal music. The first, A Varietie of Lute Lessons, which as the title suggests features lessons but also a long essay on European lute production, contains important information on lute performance, in part originating from his esteemed father, John Dowland. It is not far-fetched to imagine that Robert’s father also had a part to play in the second book, A Musicall Banquet – John had returned from the Danish court some time previously and is represented by several pieces in the anthology. Adhering to the culinary metaphor of the collection’s title, this Banquet comprises ‘recipes’ from different countries with different levels of technical difficulty, and is made up of ‘dishes’ already taste-tested so as not to poison ‘diners’, in other words, established pieces that were nonetheless as yet unknown to the English public. Robert opens his anthology with a large selection of English songs, taken from what was by that point a well-established repertoire: at the time Banquet was published, an impressive 24 books of songs had already been printed, beginning with John Dowland’s First Booke of Songes or Ayres, published in 1797. The next group of pieces in the collection belong to a genre that could be considered the most similar to the English song, the French air de cour, in the sense that the latter, at least in its most ancient form, influenced the development of the former. The air de cour for voice and lute was enjoying enormous success thanks to the scores Robert Ballard began publishing in 1608. The selection of Italian pieces is the most significant part of the collection.
Dowland: Lachrimae
Dowland: Lachrimae
Dowland: Whose Heavenly Touch
Dowland: Songs for Soprano and Guitar / McKenzie, Bini
J. Dowland: Blisseful Kisses
Dowland, J.: Lute Songs and Ayres
Dowland, Schubert & Sor: Elegiaque
Dowland: Sweet Melancholy
D O W L N D R A K E
Dowland, Gorlinsky, Huwet, Milano, Narvaez & Visee: Vanishing Point
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.”
