Post Description

John Dowland and his music are closely associated with the Elizabethan cultivation of melancholy, an aesthetic conceit expressed in poetry and songs of the period. Even Dowland's personal motto -- Semper Dowland, semper dolens -- suggests the practiced air of sadness and suffering that colors his music. A Pleasing Melancholy, a 2017 hybrid SACD from BIS featuring soprano Emma Kirkby with lutenist James Akers and the Chelys Consort of Viols, presents some of Dowland's most poignant works, of which the song Flow my tears, and the consort pieces based on its melody, the Lachrimae, or Seven Teares, are most representative. The program also includes a handful of Renaissance songs by Robert Jones, Tobias Hume, John Danyel, and Anthony Holborne, which illustrate the fashionability of Dowland's tune and the variations and imitations it received from his contemporaries. This audiophile recording offers remarkably clear sound, so Kirkby's singing is easy to follow, and the viol consort's counterpoint isn't blurred by the resonant acoustics. 

dank aan originele poster!