A Pleasing Melancholy
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: John Dowland, Antony Holborne, John Danyel, Tobias Hume, Robert Jones
Genre:
Vocal
Label: BIS
Magazine Review Date: 01/2018
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: BIS2283
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Eyes look no more |
John Danyel, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Danyel, Composer |
If I could shut the gate |
John Danyel, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Danyel, Composer |
Flow my Teares, 'Second Book of Ayres' No 2 |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
Lachrimae |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
If floods of tears |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
M George Whitehead his Almand |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
Mourn, mourn, day is with darkness fled |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
Paduan |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
Sorrow, come! |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
(La) Volta |
John Dowland, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute John Dowland, Composer |
My heavy sprite |
Antony Holborne, Composer
Antony Holborne, Composer Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute |
What Greater Grief |
Tobias Hume, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute Tobias Hume, Composer |
Lie down poor heart |
Robert Jones, Composer
Chelys Consort of Viols Emma Kirkby, Soprano James Akers, Lute Robert Jones, Composer |
Author: Alexandra Coghlan
‘Semper Dowland, semper dolens’, punned the composer, and melancholy is certainly pervasive in a collection that interweaves the tear-strewn pavans with songs of loss, grief and mourning. Only the instrumental dances – a snappy Volta, a matter-of-fact Almand, a graceful Paduan – offer the release of tension that is so essential if the mood is not to become laboured.
Anyone familiar with Fretwork’s recording of the Lachrimae or even Phantasm’s smoother offering will find the Chelys Consort of Viols in a very different sonic world. Their soft blend, coupled with the weight and depth of sound, is a luxury instrument, capable of embracing the emotional extremes of Dowland’s music without strain. But in gaining this amplitude they lose that grit and husk in the sound that gives a viol consort its personality – a personality so ideally suited to music whose palette is drawn from infinite shades of grey.
If you’re looking for the most beautiful recording of the Lachrimae, this is unquestionably it. Whether it’s the best is very much a matter of taste. As to Kirkby, the glassy purity of her youth has now become a pleasingly smudged and pitted voice of experience, wayward at the top and occasionally snatched at the bottom. It’s a texture that works effectively with these tormented texts, but makes an odd death-bedfellow for Chelys’s plush musical upholstery.
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