Monday 14 November 2016

Words to say how words fail

John Dowland (1563 - 1626)
Praeludium
All ye whom love or fortune hath betrayed
A fancy
Behold a wonder here
Come away, come sweet love;
Mrs Winter’s Jump
Time stands still
Fortune
My thoughts are winged with hopes
Say, love if ever thou didst find
I saw my Lady weep
Flow my tears
Sorrow, stay, lend true repentant tears
Shall I strive with words to move
The King of Denmark, his Galliard
Can she excuse my wrongs
In darkness let me dwell
XV. Semper Dowland semper dolens
Go, crystal tears
Come again! Sweet love doth now invite
Now, O now I needs must part

Iestyn Davies countertenor 
Thomas Dunford lute 
Colin Hurley speaker

Wigmore Hall, London, 10 November 2016
*************

A masterpiece of programming, Iestyn Davies devised a beautifully paced evening of John Dowland's 16th century melancholy.

Iestyn Davies
The leavening of the songs with solos for lute is commonplace enough, but here further contrast was added by Colin Hurley's recital of poetry, Dowland's letters and even an excerpt from Tolstoy's short story The Kreutzer Sonata.  Hurley strongly projected his texts, even if he seemed to ham up some of Dowland's uncertainty a little too much in the letters.

This all allowed each song to shine like the precious jewels they are, and also some beautiful melding of lute solo into song. Davies presented the evening as illustrating a man "seeking to find words to say how words fail".

Thomas Dunford
Dowland does remain something of a paradox.  Acknowledged as a master of his art in Elizabethan England, he was not taken on by the music-loving monarch.  His Catholicism for a Protestant court can't be the full explanation when this was also true of William Byrd.  As it was, he had to join the court of King Christian in Denmark before returning as court musician for James I.

Thomas Dunford's lute was unfailingly sensitive, remaining at the introspective end of the spectrum even in more courtly items such as the King of Denmark's Galliard.  Iestyn Davies was in fine voice, with strong tone through his range and wonderfully clear diction.  Almost impercetibly tension and emotion were built through the first half to set up ideally the final paring of Flow, my tears and Sorrow, stay.  
  
Alas I am condemned ever,
No hope, no help there doth remain,
But down, down, down, down I fall,
Down and arise I never shall.

Not a happy man.

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