Few people can boast a musical influence as important as that one of Sir John Dowland, brilliant and talented British lutenist and composer who lived between 1500 and 1600, an active witness of an era of exceptionally generous with talents, insights, inventions and musical creations. To read his biography, inside the 24-page booklet in Italian and English that accompanies the CD, does not seem to be so far apart from the biographies of several of our contemporary rock stars: travels, intrigue, concerts, achievements, publications , the admiration of courtiers, the desire to return to his Queen, the Catholic religion ... Dowland is a mythical figure that after almost four centuries continues to be loved, studied, played, recorded and contnually defineds and developed .
The secret of this success? Dowland was certainly a fine chaser of melodies and an excellent performer, his musics are clean, catchy and never dull, but most are able to maintain a certain contemporaneity due to their ability in dealing with the great times of human emotions: Dowland speaks to us, sings and plays about loves, desires, losses, anxieties, fears ... all about our human vicissitudes, our weaknesses, our pleasures. Man is not all that changed in recent centuries, certainly we have evolved, we have become more sophisticated, more complex, our societies have evolved, progress has pushed us forward, but in the end we are made of flesh and to the flesh we always come back.
Michele Carreca and his Renaissance 8 choirs lute built by Stephen Murphy pays homage to this great man with a CD containing 25 songs, a collection of his most famous pieces, immortal music as Mrs Vaux's Galliard, The Right Honourable The Lady Clifton's Spirit, John Dowland's Galliard, Sir John Smith, His Almain, Lachrimae, The Right Honourable Earl of Essex, His Galliard, Lady Hunsdon's Puffe, Fortune, Mr. Dowland's Midnight, Sweet Robin and Dowland's Galliard, to name a few.
I can hardly be considered an expert in music for lute, but the eight choirs of Carreca's lute pleasantly impressed me by its cleanliness, its lyricism and pleasant musical tension that can express, reinterpreting with considerable skill this music and ballads listen to people when even the mere memory has faded and became dust in the dust of centuries. Clean recording and with the right reverb. Highly recommended.
http://www.michelecarreca.com/
http://continuorecords.com/index.php/it/catalogo/item/51-michele-carreca-mr-dowland-s-fortune
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