Lachrimae Or Seven Tears

Description

This magnificent album won two major early music awards, the Gramophone Award 2017 and the Diapason d’or of the year 2017. It was also named "First Choice" by the Building A Library program of BBC Radio 3. John Dowland's exceptional talents in melodic development are evident in Lachrimae or Seven Tears, a work that has profoundly influenced early music. Summarizing the melancholic concerns of the Renaissance, this extraordinary collection of dance music for viols and lute includes the piece Semper Dowland semper dolens, which encapsulates his entire work, a sublime personal world made of sadness and sorrow, anger and melancholy, elevated by moments of joy. Dowland's meticulously crafted pieces, he himself a talented lutenist, require perfect coordination between Phantasm and Elizabeth Kenny, who rise to the technical challenge posed by the marriage of their instruments. Despite the absence of lyrical constraints, poetic images remain, prompting Laurence Dreyfus of Phantasm to describe this music as "the most sensitive and harmonious ever written."