Dowland, R: A Musicall Banquet 1610

This record was originally issued in England on the L'Oiseau-Lyre label as part of a remarkable series. Said series was devoted to the complete works of John Dowland, the great lutenist and songwriter of the Jacobean era. It included not only all 1hc known ayres, lute pieces, and consort works, but also transcriptions by other musicians of the period, and indeed just .1hout everything related to Dowland in any significant way.

With regard to the present record, 0 Dowland buffs, caveat emptor! This is one of the tangential manifestations of the series. The Dowland in question is really not John but Robert, John's son. Poor Robert appears not to have been a very memorable musician--certainly not one of his father's stature. He had some musical talent, however. He was known for a time as a lutenist in London. He also left, under his own name, three or four lute pieces heavily influenced by his father. In the early 1620's he toured Germany with a troupe English actors.

In 1610 the presumably 19-year-old Robert made his most significant musical contributions to history: he published Varietie of Lute-Lessons and the volume Robert being considered here. Both works have the paternal fingerprints all over them. The first contains a number of pieces by John (as well as two by Robert, one based on fatherly themes) and his translation of a piece on lute playing by Besard. (Was it the book of "lessons" that John had kept promising?)

The Banquet is an anthology or lute-song miscellany analogous to the poetical miscellanies popular a couple of decades earlier. The gimmick is that it represents a musical full-course meal. Nine of the songs (three not elsewhere printed) are by English composers, of whom the most notable are Anthony Holborne, Daniel Batchelar, and the senior Dowland. The rest are French (Guedron and Guillaume Tessier), Spanish (anonymous), and Italian (Caccini and Megli). Lute-accompanied, they are here "authentically" performed by one or two voices, with or without viol continuo. The singers, of course, are the current aristocracy among "old music" specialists, which means that if you like vibrato-less singing, you'll adore them.

This record was originally issued in England on the L'Oiseau-Lyre label as part of a remarkable series. Said series was devoted to the complete works of John Dowland, the great lutenist and songwriter of the Jacobean era. It included not only all 1hc known ayres, lute pieces, and consort works, but also transcriptions by other musicians of the period, and indeed just .1hout everything related to Dowland in any significant way.

With regard to the present record, 0 Dowland buffs, caveat emptor! This is one of the tangential manifestations of the series. The Dowland in question is really not John but Robert, John's son. Poor Robert appears not to have been a very memorable musician--certainly not one of his father's stature. He had some musical talent, however. He was known for a time as a lutenist in London. He also left, under his own name, three or four lute pieces heavily influenced by his father. In the early 1620's he toured Germany with a troupe English actors.

In 1610 the presumably 19-year-old Robert made his most significant musical contributions to history: he published Varietie of Lute-Lessons and the volume Robert being considered here. Both works have the paternal fingerprints all over them. The first contains a number of pieces by John (as well as two by Robert, one based on fatherly themes) and his translation of a piece on lute playing by Besard. (Was it the book of "lessons" that John had kept promising?)

The Banquet is an anthology or lute-song miscellany analogous to the poetical miscellanies popular a couple of decades earlier. The gimmick is that it represents a musical full-course meal. Nine of the songs (three not elsewhere printed) are by English composers, of whom the most notable are Anthony Holborne, Daniel Batchelar, and the senior Dowland. The rest are French (Guedron and Guillaume Tessier), Spanish (anonymous), and Italian (Caccini and Megli). Lute-accompanied, they are here "authentically" performed by one or two voices, with or without viol continuo. The singers, of course, are the current aristocracy among "old music" specialists, which means that if you like vibrato-less singing, you'll adore them.