Down with Dowland

[Mandryka]

.   

Released in January and then promptly forgotten about by me, revisiting this film soundtrack this after, it's a corker.  Some of this judgement is something personal: Delia Agúndez has a voice which reminds me of Birgit Nilsson, which suits me very nicely. You either like the timbre or you don't, no point in arguing. Me, when I listen to her, I feel like I'm being showered with diamonds.


But there's another thing: lute playing by someone called Robert Cases. Very distinctive and thoughtful. And Carles Magraner on viol is pretty special. The whole team is wonderful in fact, and they play as a team too. Altogether a hit, this.

[Mandryka]

What are my options on record for the third book of songs? Rooley obviously, but is there anything else?

[Jo498]

It's not complete, I think, but Paul Agnew has one disc with some songs from the 3rd book (Metronome) and AFAIR I liked all three of Agnew's discs with Dowland and contemporaries.

[Mandryka]

It's not complete, I think, but Paul Agnew has one disc with some songs from the 3rd book (Metronome) and AFAIR I liked all three of Agnew's discs with Dowland and contemporaries.

Thanks. I'll definitely check Agnew out.

Has anyone who posts here explored these songs critically? I wonder if Dowland's style changes.

(I'm dipping in to Rooley's Bk 3 today.)

[Jo498]

No; it's been a while that I listened to them or was "into" that music and I usually had listened mixed Elizabethan lute song recitals, often not just Dowland, so I never paid any attention to chronology.

[calyptorhynchus]

There are three modern complete lute-music cycles, by messers North, Lindberg and O'Dette. However an earlier complete lute music collection was issued in 1980 on 5 LPs by Oiseaux-Lyre. The players were Anthony Rooley, Anthony Bailes, Christopher Wilson, and the young Lindberg and North.



These LPs were never reissued on CD, but I have discovered that many (perhaps all) of the tracks are on Youtube and you can listen to them there, eg

I'm listening to some of my favourites at the moment. They seem very mellow and relaxed, but I haven't been paying attention to which player is playing each track, so it might just be a characteristic of some of the players, not the collection as a whole.

[DaveF]

These LPs were never reissued on CD

I beg to differ, good sir - you're probably right that the lute music was never reissued on its own, but it was part of the 12-disc Collected Works (which sits happily on my "Favourite Recordings" shelf for my descendants to throw away when I die (a sentiment I'm sure Dowland would have approved of).)  Like those other fine old Oiseau-Lyre intégrales (Dufay, Ockeghem), it's long been unavailable as a physical product. And in fact, the LP versions of the song books were more "complete" than the CDs, since some cuts were made in the transfers, presumably due to space issues on early CDs - the odd verse missing here and there (which don't appear to have been restored in the download versions, although doubtless they could be).

[calyptorhynchus]

I beg to differ, good sir - you're probably right that the lute music was never reissued on its own, but it was part of the 12-disc Collected Works (which sits happily on my "Favourite Recordings" shelf for my descendants to throw away when I die (a sentiment I'm sure Dowland would have approved of).)  Like those other fine old Oiseau-Lyre intégrales (Dufay, Ockeghem), it's long been unavailable as a physical product. And in fact, the LP versions of the song books were more "complete" than the CDs, since some cuts were made in the transfers, presumably due to space issues on early CDs - the odd verse missing here and there (which don't appear to have been restored in the download versions, although doubtless they could be).

Good to hear, I think that the issue with songs being cut was that they were trying to put the LPs on to fewer CDs, as even the earliest CDs held more music than an LP. I never bought that set because the Consort of Music performances of the songs didn't appeal as... [lowers voice to a whisper before uttering a blasphemy] I don't really like Emma Kirkby's voice.

[DaveF]

I don't really like Emma Kirkby's voice.

Well, it's distinctive, certainly - I must admit to being a fan, although much less so of David Thomas, whose appeal I could never really understand.