Flow My Tears : Songs for Lute, Viol and Voice
Robert JOHNSON (c.1583-1633)
Have you seen the bright lily grow? [2:48]
Care-charming sleep [3:35]
From the famous peak of Derby [1:26]
John DOWLAND (1563-1626)
Preludium (instrumental) [1:20]
A Fancy (instrumental) [2:11]
Come again, sweet love doth now invite [4:00]
In darkness let me dwell [3:56]
Can she excuse my wrongs [2:15]
Flow my tears [4:25]
Now, o now I needs must part with The Frog Galliard [5:20]
John DANYEL (c.1564-c.1626)
Mrs M.E. Her funeral tears for the death of her husband [8:13]
Why canst thou not? [1:19]
Can doleful notes? [7:34]
Thomas CAMPION (1567-1620)
Never weather-beaten sail [1:35]
I care not for these ladies [2:00]
Nico MUHLY (b.1981)
Old Bones [10:51]
Tobias HUME (d. 1645)
First Part of Ayres (instrumental): A Souldier’s Galliard [1:27]: Love’s
Farewell [3:44]: A Souldier’s Resolution [3:03]
Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor): Thomas Dunford (lute): Jonathan Manson
(viol)
rec. 5 July 2013, live, Wigmore Hall, London
WIGMORE HALL LIVE WHLIVE 0074 [76:38]
Iestyn Davies, Thomas Dunford and Jonathan Manson’s
recital was given at Wigmore Hall on 5 July 2013 and is part of the
hall’s ‘Live’ series of discs. Whereas he has elsewhere specialised
in Dowland – his Hyperion album ‘The Art of Melancholy’ did precisely
that - this one is a little more contextual, placing the composer alongside
contemporaries John Danyel and Thomas Campion as well as the younger
Robert Johnson and Tobias Hume. There is also a world premiere performance
of the prolific Nico Muhly’s Old Bones.
They begin with a song that many would have sung as an encore, Johnson’s
Have you seen the bright lily grow? but when it’s sung, and played,
with such beautifully focused tone and expressive intensity no one’s
minding. The sequence of three Johnson songs also includes the engagingly
dispatched From the famous peak of Derby. Dunford takes centre-stage
for two Dowland instrumentals – the recital is well programmed in terms
of variety and mood, even allowing for the melancholic nature of most
of the material – and then there’s a performance of Danyel’s Mrs
M.E. Her funeral tears for the death of her husband. Her identity
is lost to us and the three movements that make up this memorial piece
are often performed separately. It does however generate a far greater
sense of concentration when they run as intended and the use of the
(optional) viol adds its own depth and tonal gravity not always there
when the voice is supported only by the lute. Davies sings this with
great perception never allowing his vibrato to swell on exposed notes,
preferring instead to remain within stylistic and vocal constraints.
Many of the settings are necessarily brief, and this is true of Campion’s
beautiful Never weather-beaten sail, a candidate - if ever there
was one - for the replay button. It’s sung with exquisite refinement
and elicits knowing, merited applause. Reading the notes I thought,
however, that it had been established that Tobias Hume, whose instrumental
pieces are played by Jonathan Manson with great spirit, was Scottish
not English as the booklet states. The sequence of five Dowland songs
to some extent replicates things Davies has sung on disc before, but
since they are among the composer’s most famous songs that’s hardly
surprising. They have been well sequenced, the metrical elasticity of
Flow my tears being especially notable. Now, O now I needs
must part segues into the instrumental The Frog Galliard
– the song and the instrumental share the same tune – and it’s conjectured
that courtiers would have played both as a single item in the way it’s
presented here.
Muhly’s novelty comes as something of a surprise. It takes media texts
on the subject of the discovery of the bones of Richard III in Leicester
and conjoins them with shards of poetry praising his supposed killer,
Rhys ap Tomas. A news report recitative opens Old Bones, and
there is an ensuing processional and moments for lute interludes. These
last I find rather repetitious, and the whole work, at eleven minutes,
over-extended.
Despite this relative disappointment, it in no way dispels admiration
for this beautifully performed recital.
Jonathan Woolf
