Mark Padmore - John Dowland's Lute Songs (Hyperion)
UK release date: January 2007
John Dowland, until fairly recently, shone a lonely star in the constellation of English Renaissance music. Whilst pieces by contemporaries such as William Byrd and John Bull were rarely recorded or performed before the early music revival of the last 30 years, Dowland has long beguiled composers, singers and instrumentalists.
He continues to wield influence, inspiring, most notably, a radical "cover" of In darkness let me dwell from Thomas Adès and a fashionable – if unorthodox – makeover by Sting, and it is this theme of ongoing interpretation that provided a starting point for Hyperion"s latest recording.
The programme is divided into three parts, with two sections of Dowland works interspersed by Benjamin Britten's Nocturnal Op.70, one of his two instrumental works that were inspired by Dowland. Accompanied by the lutist Elizabeth Kenny, who has space to exhibit her own talent with three individual lute songs, British tenor Mark Padmore guides the modern listener through the emotions of the poetry: burgeoning passion, unrequited love, despair, and the fear of death. Such themes are timeless and it's a measure of Dowland's enduring musical appeal that one is still tempted to reach for those lazy adjectives "foreign" and "exotic" to describe his bold key changes and elusive style.
Having displayed Handelian virtuosity in his highly acclaimed solo release of last year, Padmore brings a more focused drama to his performance here. Kenny's sparse and precise accompaniment allows him to explore his voice as an instrument, sometimes mellow and resonant, sometimes cleaner, reedier, but never resorting to the sort of hollow breathiness that can taint exposed recital work. There is a great control of expression and Padmore's sensitive ornamentation makes the music his own – according to the project's theme – without garish disfigurement. The simple cover slip provides lyrics and detailed notes by Kenny, though Padmore's immaculate diction renders the former almost superfluous.
The movements that make up Britten's Nocturnal after John Dowland (1963) for solo guitar (the lute at that time rarely used for recital) are described as "reflections" on the previous track Come heavy sleep, but the themes of darkness, dreams and death, are also to be found in In darkness let me dwell. Guitarist Craig Ogden delivers a clean and bright performance, opening with fiendishly complex finger work in the "very agitated", "restless" and "uneasy" movements, suggesting insomnia, before sinking into gentle, dreamlike playfulness in later movements. As an interlude, or reverie, Britten's piece serves to cleanse the pallet before returning to the second of Dowland songs. All in all, this is a welcome addition to Dowland's ever-expanding archive: delightful, thought-provoking and immaculately produced.
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