Dowland: In this trembling shadow cast

In the late 16th C, lute songs were known as ‘Ayres’ with John Dowland’s form of writing establishing a fashion of both composition and performance which was to last for 25 years.

The popularity of rhetoric and a fashion for melancholy spilled over to Dowland’s writing and he became one of the greatest advocates for this style.

This disc is a wonderful collection of his melancholic works (difficult to achieve as the composer himself never made a ‘collection’ as such), performed here by the fantastic Fretwork ensemble with countertenor Dominque Visse singing.

Dominque began his career at the age of 11 as a chorister in the Cathedral of Notre Dame and went on to study with Alfred Deller. He has since performed with other greats including more recently René Jacobs, Nigel Rogers and William Christie.

Continuing its work with the rising stars of the early music world, CORO is delighted to be releasing a brand new recording by two of The Sixteen’s principal members - soprano, Elin Manahan Thomas and theorbo and lute player, David Miller.

The seventeenth century devotional songs on this disc were written against a backdrop of furious historical dramas and lurching tides of fortune. The songs chosen reflect these assorted times and contexts, and are accordingly diverse.

Ravish’d with Sacred Extasies (a quote taken directly from Playford's ‘Harmonia Sacrae’) explores some of the most beautiful Elizabethan lute songs ranging from the doctrinally eloquent to the theologically unsteady, from the spare and the restrained to the opulent and the overblown, from Dowland’s small cluster of late devotional songs to Purcell’s flowery and luscious settings.

These beautiful and melancholy “Ayres” by the English 16th century composer John Dowland may be seen as precursors of the songs of the Romantic period, two centuries later. They are performed here by the renowned combination of Gerard Lesne and the Ensemble Orlando Gibbons.