RECOMMENDED CD
John Dowland: Lute Songs and Instrumental Music
Alfred Deller, countertenor; Robert Spencer, lute; Consort of Six
Harmonia Mundi France HMC 90244
Alfred Deller’s voice was unlike anyone else’s: pale, slightly unearthly, and immediately recognizable. In Dowland’s lute songs, those qualities become virtues. Deller does not treat melancholy as generalized sadness. Every lament has its own temperature, from the stately grief of “Flow, My Tears” to the quieter resignation of “Weep You No More, Sad Fountains.”
The vocal production will sound dated to listeners accustomed to today’s smoother countertenors. There are exposed transitions between registers, and Deller occasionally seems to admire the beauty of a phrase while he is singing it. Yet the words remain clear, the line is exquisitely controlled, and the emotional restraint suits Dowland far better than theatrical anguish would.
Robert Spencer accompanies with tact and imagination, keeping the lute alive as an independent voice rather than reducing it to background decoration. The instrumental pieces and contributions from the Consort of Six provide welcome changes of color.
Later singers have offered greater technical polish, but few have inhabited this music so completely. Deller’s Dowland belongs to an earlier stage of the early-music revival, yet it has not become obsolete. It remains intimate, melancholy, and hauntingly personal.
The original 1978 recording was later expanded into a two-disc reissue, Harmonia Mundi HMG 50244/45.
