‘Semper Dowland, semper dolens’, John Dowland famously punned, but the composer’s First Booke of Songes or Ayres couldn’t be further from the fifty-shades-of-black of the Lachrimae. Darkness is tempered with more than a chink of light, tragedy with rueful amusement, resignation and even perhaps a certain pleasure in the courtly game of unrequited love. Soprano Grace Davidson has one of the loveliest voices in early music but whether she has the expressive range for this artful collections of miniatures is less certain.

Fresh, sweet and true, with barely a flicker of vibrato, Davidson’s instrument inevitably begs comparison with Emma Kirkby. Slightly fuller of tone, her voice more evenly weighted through the range, Davidson comes off well; but with Dowland lovelier isn’t always better.

The mock-sincere and ‘gather ye rosebuds’ songs – ‘Come again, sweet love’, ‘Away with these self-loving lads’, ‘Think’st thou then by thy feigning’ – are charming, text crisply percussive against the smooth lines of melody, with David Miller’s lute offering gently arch accompaniment. ‘Come away, come sweet love’ is all light-footed energy (though its seductions are perhaps a little on the chaste side) while Davidson’s non-interventionist instincts allow the simple beauty of ‘Now, oh now I needs must part’ to flourish to its fullest.

But what feels lacking by the end of the recital is any glimpse of the private face of Dowland. The songs where he strips off the public affectations of grief and the sardonic mask and really shows himself to us – ‘Burst forth my tears’, ‘Come heavy sleep’, ‘Dear, if you change’ – lack that edge of ugliness, of desperation that seeps out between the evenly scanned lines. The latter’s great invocation of nature and beyond – ‘Earth, heaven, fire, air’ – should plead and protest, but here just states. These are beautiful, musical performances but not moving as Dowland can and should be.