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A Pleasing Melancholy

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Label
Catalogue numberBIS-2283 SACD
Release date2017-08-10
Discs1
Orig. sample rate96000 Hz
Total time72:13

‘A pleasing melancholy’ is how Robert Burton described the feeling that certain music can give rise to, in his The Anatomy of Melancholy from 1621. Some 20 years earlier John Dowland, melancholic par excellence, had expressed a similar idea in the dedication of his Lachrimae, or Seven Tears: ‘pleasant are the tears which music weeps’.

During this period in England, melancholia had become fashionable, especially in cultural and literary circles, and spawned countless poems, paintings and songs. When Dowland’s lute song Flow My Tears was published in 1600, the instrumental Lachrimae Pavan on which it was based had been in circulation for several years and was the composer’s ‘number one hit’ both in England and on the continent – and four years after the song, he returned to the music and varied it in the ‘seven tears’ for viol consort and lute.

Colleagues of Dowland such as Robert Jones and John Danyel explored similar moods and emotions in their own songs, sometimes – as in Danyel’s Eyes look no more – making clear allusions to Dowland’s famous pavan. The Chelys Consort of Viols released their first disc in 2015 to critical acclaim. For the present recording they are joined by lutenist James Akers, and Emma Kirkby, the English soprano who has long been a leading figure in the field of early music.
 
  • STUDIO QUALITY
    File formats included in STUDIO QUALITY
    • FLAC 24-bit Stereo
    • FLAC 24-bit Surround 5.0
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
  • CD QUALITY | MP3
    File formats included in CD QUALITY | MP3
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
$ 17.28
 
Extra material for download
 
01 Lachrimae Antiquae 04:10 $ 1.02 USD
02 Flow my tears 03:44 $ 0.90 USD
03 Lachrimae Antiquae Novae 04:00 $ 0.98 USD
04 Lie down poor heart 04:23 $ 1.08 USD
05 If floods of tears 03:51 $ 0.93 USD
06 Lachrimae Gementes 04:23 $ 1.06 USD
07 Lachrimae Tristes 04:55 $ 1.20 USD
08 Mourn, mourn, day is with darkness fled 01:31 $ 0.38 USD
09 M. George Whitehead his Almand 01:29 $ 0.38 USD
10 What greater grief 03:39 $ 0.89 USD
11 Paduan 05:27 $ 1.32 USD
12 Volta 01:07 $ 0.28 USD
13 Sorrow, come 03:01 $ 0.74 USD
14 Eyes look no more 03:19 $ 0.81 USD
15 Lachrimae Coactae 04:18 $ 1.04 USD
16 Lachrimae Amantis 04:42 $ 1.14 USD
17 My heavy sprite 02:33 $ 0.63 USD
18 If I could shut the gate against my thoughts 05:09 $ 1.25 USD
19 Lachrimae Verae 04:45 $ 1.27 USD
  Album total 72:13
EnsembleChelys
LuteAkers, James
ComposerDanyel, John
Dowland, John
Holborne, Anthony
Hume, Tobias
Jones, Robert
SopranoKirkby, Emma
ArrangerAziz, Ibrahim
Wigthorpe, William

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