Matthew Wadsworth, James Gilchrist - When Laura Smiles: Lute solos and songs from Elizabethan England by Philip Rosseter (2005)

Composer Philip Rosseter was a contemporary (and friend) of Thomas Morley and Thomas Campion. Given the enduring affection for the culture of the Elizabethan era, especially in England, it may seem surprising that this disc of lute songs and solo lute pieces is the first recording devoted completely to his works. The explanation for his relative neglect perhaps has to do with his texts, which are a step below those set by Morley or John Dowland. Rosseter sometimes seems to have had a rhyming dictionary handy (if there were such things in Elizabethan times): "It is the heavens' bright reflex/Weak eyes to dazzle and to vex/It is the idea of her sex/Envy of whom doth world perplex." Rosseter became a lutenist to King James I, and the solo lute pieces here are perhaps the strongest: the Fantasia, track 3, is in the mold of and a worthy companion to Dowland's chromatic pieces.
The performers give the absolute best account of Rosseter's music. Lutenist has a real gift for drawing an audience into an intimate environment, even on a recording; he keeps tempos on the slow side and hangs back just a bit from the beat, even in the dances, without producing mannered performances. Tenor James Gilchrist has a clear, attractive sound, superb diction, and a real sense of how to express the syntax of the text. At times this syntax is a bit tortured, but at other times, such as in the simple title track (track 11), he brings the listener fully into the orbit of the young lovely who "with her divine beauties/all the world subdues/and fills with heav'nly spirits my humble muse." Note that the track numbering of the texts (in English only, although notes are in French and German as well) does not correspond to the tracklist or the actual ordering of pieces on the disc itself. This is a superior performance of middling music, recommended to Elizabethan enthusiasts or to singers looking for offbeat Renaissance material.