Did Dowland ever expect this collection to be played in its entirety, at one sitting? If so, in what order? Whatever your own 'answers' to these unanswerable questions may be, you can (if you feel strongly about it) easily impose them on any of the various integral versions on CD. Fretwork's original approach was to present the pavans and the rest on separate discs, juxtaposing them with music by Byrd, but here they are reissued as an entirety, with the dances in their original published order—the whole book 'as is'. The performances are laudable in their characterization (of the pavans in particular), discreet embellishment of the dances, clarity of detail (the product of pleasantly dry string sound and acoustic) and overall balance, in which the lute is neither backgrounded nor obtrusive. Christopher Wilson, Diana Poulton's favourite 'renaissance' pupil, adds a firmly propulsive edge to the dances; he is absent from both photographs in the booklet but happily not from the recorded sound!
This is the best available version of Dowland's monumental work, graced with Peter Holman's splendid notes and blessed with superbly engineered recording. To this strong recommendation I would add as a supplement the recording by The Parley of Instruments Renaissance Violin Consort, the only one to avail itself of Dowland's ''or Violons'' option (Hyperion, 8/93); Holman directs the proceedings—you can't keep a good man down!'