Iestyn Davies, Thomas Dunford, Jonathan Manson - Flow My Tears - Songs For Lute, Viol and Voice - Wigmore Hall Live (2015)

Tracklist

01. Have You Seen the Bright Lily Grow?
02. Care-Charming Sleep
03. From the Famous Peak of Derby
04. Preludium
05. A Fancy
06. Mrs M. E. Her Funeral Tears For the Death of Her Husband: No. 1, Grief, Keep Within
07. Mrs M. E. Her Funeral Tears For the Death of Her Husband: No. 2, Drop Not, Mine Eyes
08. Mrs M. E. Her Funeral Tears For the Death of Her Husband: No. 3, Have All Our Passions?
09. Why Canst Thou Not?
10. Can Doleful Notes?: No. 1, Can Doleful Notes
11. Can Doleful Notes?: No. 2, No, Let Chromatic Tunes
12. Can Doleful Notes?: No. 3, Uncertain Certain Turns
13. Never Weather-Beaten Sail
14. Old Bones
15. The First Part of Ayres or Captain Humes Musicall Humors: XLVIII. A Souldiers Galliard
16. The First Part of Ayres or Captain Humes Musicall Humors: XLVII. Loves Farewell
17. The First Part of Ayres or Captain Humes Musicall Humors: XI. A Souldiers Resolution
18. Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite
19. In Darkness Let Me Dwell
20. Can She Excuse My Wrongs
21. Flow My Tears
22. Now, O Now I Needs Must Part With The Frog Galliard
23. Spoken Introduction to the Encore
24. I Care Not For These Ladies

The title Flow my tears, taken from John Dowland's quintessential melancholy song of the Elizabethan era, leads one to expect a collection of Renaissance lute songs that's like so many others out there. In fact, British countertenor Iestyn Davies, a somewhat underrated figure in an era of flashy countertenor stars, delivers a program that's well above average, recorded live at London's Wigmore Hall in 2013 and impressively free of extraneous noise made by either the performers or the audience. Start with American composer Nico Muhly's rather unlikely Old Bones, which mixes news accounts of the discovery of the bones of Richard III with bits of poetry praising the man thought to have killed him, and fits the whole thing into a reasonable replica of the form of the longer lute songs. It has no right to work as well as it does -- Richard III was nowhere near Dowland and John Danyel chronologically -- but you are unlikely to find another contemporary composition in any style or genre that gets the sustained applause this one does. Davies varies his program with unusual music like the pungent short pieces by Danyel and the instrumental airs by Tobias Hume, and he articulates all the texts clearly and revels in their expression. A superior Renaissance song release.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]