Robert Johnson was lutenist to both James I and Charles I; he was also engaged by The King’s Men to provide music not only for Shakespeare’s plays but also those by Webster, Fletcher and Middleton. This new disc easily confirms Johnson’s status as a composer equal to that of John Dowland.

But there’s a hidden music here as well: a beautifully crafted programme and restrained, crystalline performances allow lute, voice and viol to become players in a strange theatre of sound, which lends the music a modern sensibility while paradoxically resulting in a more persuasive ‘authenticity’ than the overtly theatrical (and more liberally ornamented) approach taken by Anthony Rooley with Emma Kirkby and David Thomas on a Virgin collection (4/94, nla). There’s an element of strangeness which throws you hard against reality.

Carolyn Sampson’s voice is flexible and sensuous, her legato line never spoiled by, although still subordinated to, the poetry’s metrical exigencies, resulting in a gentle declamatory style. And the expressive rhetoric of Johnson’s solo music is thoroughly explored by Wadsworth – the pavans and almains which punctuate the recital are transformed by stylish, insightful playing into beautiful meditations.

Here are lost loves, madness and death. A beautiful pall over your evening’s listening.