This CD has a programme
of songs, instrumental pieces and poems from the end of the
sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. The
unifying thread is the theme of love, with a particular emphasis
on fashionable love melancholy. The poems are read by Ralph
Fiennes, in a manner which is often at odds with the elaborate
rhetorical patterns of the poems. I can’t say that I much enjoyed
his readings and, in any case, there are some odd choices. The
long poem by Francis Quarles is undistinguished, to say the
best of it, and it is very frustrating to listen to Fiennes
reading the words of Campion when we might have been hearing
Daniel Taylor or James Bowman sing them. This is particularly
so when the booklet notes make a point of reminding us that
“Campion’s cause deserves to be championed: the only true poet/musician
of his age”. I suspect that I shall not be alone in making use
of the programming function on my CD player on most occasions
when I listen to this CD in future!
Musically
speaking, Love bade me welcome is altogether more successful.
The songs of Robert Jones are well represented, nine songs being
recorded in all. Seven of these are taken from his book of 1609
A Musicall Dreame and two from his collection of 1600
The First Booke of Songes and Ayres. Five of the pieces
from A Musicall Dreame are sung as duets, and the voices
of Taylor and Bowman blend beautifully in these. The opening
track, ‘Though your strangeness frets my heart’, to a text by
Campion, is particularly fine; finer still would have been the
chance to hear Campion’s setting too. Still, Jones’s use of
imitation in the two voices, here and elsewhere, is often delightful.
The two counter-tenors are clearly enjoying themselves in the
vocal interplay of ‘Sweet Kate’ and only a hard-hearted listener
would fail to share their pleasure. Also recorded are two of
Jones’s very best solo songs, ‘’What if I seek for love of thee?’
and ‘Lie down, poor heart’. Bowman sings the first, Taylor the
second, and both are excellent. Taylor in particular sustains
the slow-moving ‘Lie down’ and invests it with real emotional
weight.
John
Dowland is represented by four songs and a lute solo. Elizabeth
Kenny plays ‘Lacrimæ’ with unforced expressiveness, and the
same famous melody serves, of course, for ‘Flow, my tears’,
gracefully sung by James Bowman. He is also a persuasive advocate
for the more upbeat side of Dowland, in ‘’Say love if ever thou
didst find’. Daniel Taylor’s performance of ‘Me, me and none
but me’ gives us, beautifully, the more familiar Dowland, seemingly
“half in love with easeful death”.
Robert
Johnson is represented by two instrumental pieces, rather than
by any of his songs. Frances Kelly plays ‘Lady Hatton’s Almain’
very sensitively and is joined by Elizabeth Kenny for a lively
performance of ‘The Second Witches Dance’. Neither piece, incidentally,
is duplicated on the Virgin Classics CD devoted to Robert Johnson
(VC 7 5931 2). From the same two musicians comes a vivacious
performance of the anonymous ‘Zouch his march’.
Overall,
this is an interesting miscellany, particularly valuable for
its representation of the work of Robert Jones, though it is
not without missed opportunities and frustrations. Those who
like the readings by Ralph Fiennes more than I do will doubtless
value it even more highly.
Glyn Pursglove
Theatre of Early Music: James Bowman (counter-tenor, solo on tracks marked
¶), Daniel Taylor (counter-tenor, solo on tracks marked 
