In music, renaissance composers turned repeatedly to the dialogue form when treating certain subjects, and this disc, which sets dialogues by the greatest English lute song composer, John Dowland, alongside works by his contemporaries, groups duos, duets and dialogues-proper together according to theme or topic. In fact, in the English lute ayre repertoire some dialogues lurk in the guise of solo songs. 'Say Love if ever thou didst find' [track 2] printed for one or four voices, surely comes from some court entertainment, flattering Queen Elizabeth I, and in fact is very similar in structure to another court piece of Dowland's, 'Humour, say what makest thou here?' which was published as a dialogue and chorus; as far as we know this is the first recording to reconstruct the song in its probable original form, and likewise we give the first recorded dialogue interpretation of 'Awake sweet Love, thou are returned' - a very convoluted soliloquy, but which again makes good sense if it is read as a dialogue between the Lover and Love.

Our first set or genre consists of Conversations with Cupid. We open with Dowland's famous 'Come again, sweet Love doth now invite' [1], which begins as an address to a wavering lover, before the singer turns to the audience to describe his torments, and in the last verse commiserates with Cupid at the impotence of his darts. Next we have a song [2] in which Cupid explains to his interlocutor that his arrows are useless against a certain person - the Queen, of course, who in fact is the true queen of love, and unchangeable. (The line 'yet still the same and she is so' refers to her motto, 'semper eadem', always herself.) 'Tell me, true Love' [3] is another verse and chorus piece, a one-sided address to Love, who does not answer; where after all can we find Love in this wicked world? But true love can be found in the marriage of true minds -this song (of which we perform only two verses) is probably a wedding song. 'Tell me dearest, what is Love?' [4] is a play song sung by the two heroines of Beaumont and Fletcher's The Captain, Frank and Clora. The music was written by Robert Johnson, for a few years the in-house composer of the King's Men, Shakespeare's troupe. 'Awake sweet Love, thou are returned' [5] is one of Dowland's loveliest melodies yet the lyrics can baffle audiences. We think it makes perfect sense as a dialogue between the Lover and Love. In the first verse the Lover tells Cupid to awaken because 'thou are returned' i.e. '[my] love is at last reciprocated'; and he goes on to describe his former pain. In the second verse Cupid consoles the Lover that 'she all this while but played with thee to make thy love more sweet'. We close this set with an anonymous duet setting for two lutes tuned a fourth apart of 'Dowland's Bells' otherwise known as 'The Lady Rich's Galliard'.

In our next set of pieces [tracks 7-9] we pay a visit to Arcadia, the land of fair shepherdesses and love-lorn shepherd lads. Dowland did not write many pastoral pieces, and certainly we under-represent the pastoral mood here. First popularised by Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, pastoral scenes of all kinds grew and grew in popularity until in the late 17th century one feels that 'shepherd' and' shepherdess' are merely synonyms for man and woman. At all events, we present a little vignette of three scenes. In Ferrabosco's 'Fair cruel nymph' [7] the clouds of the swain's despair are very quickly dispelled and the lovers are vowing constancy within a mere two minutes. 'A shepherd in a shade' [8], however, leaves the shepherd dangling; for all the song's joyous part-writing, we do not know if his shepherd maid will respond positively to his threats to pronounce curses on Love itself. 'Tell me, O love', [9] is another of Ferrabosco's micro-dramas. After conventional protestations, we discover that in fact it is some unspecified circumstances keeping these true turtle doves apart (a very common theme in English folksong) and they are left just hoping that their luck will change so that they can be together.

A dialogue with the dead is necessarily a one-sided affair, but perhaps a dialogue is what is subconsciously implied in John Coprario's choice of a two-soprano texture in his cycle of seven Funeral Tears (1606) composed on the death of Duke of Devonshire, of which we perform two songs here. 'O sweet flower' [10] laments a life cut cruelly short, likened to a falling flower or a tired pilgrim, and 'Oft thou hast' [11] recalls music in happier times, now turned to songs of sorrow.

Now we return from death to Cupid, with a second trilogy, this time telling a little love story, beginning with maidenly-modest refusal. Danyel's 'Coy Daphne fled' [12], which opens his rather learned book of songs published in that same year of 1606, gives two opposing views of the Classical myth of Dafne, turned by chaste Diana into a laurel tree to save her from the clutches of the lustful Apollo. To the man this seems a frigid and sterile end, to the maiden it is a blessed preservation of innocence and virginity. Morley's 'Who is that this dark night?' [13] sets to music a balcony scene written by Sir Philip Sidney. The girl on the balcony, initially sceptical of her wooer's constancy, is won over, but the romantic scene is broken up by 'noises off' of approaching family or neighbours. We give our story a happy ending with another of Ferrabosco's dialogues, 'What shall I wish' [14], an avowal of lovers' constancy. 'My Lord Chamberlain his Galliard' [15] is famously written for two to play on one lute - John Dowland's son Robert sitting on his lap perhaps - yet surely it must have been used for wooing and flirtation too, with a young lady on a gentleman's lap. We have re-interpreted it for two lutes, with differing timbres.

Our next set of songs are not dialogues at all, though originating in a dramatic and courtly occasion - the retirement in 1590 of Sir Henry Lee, Queen Elizabeth's self-styled 'champion', on the grounds of old age. These songs are recorded as being sung before the Queen by her favourite singer, Robert Hales, on behalf of old Sir Henry, to the accompaniment of a concealed consort. Yet Dowland printed the trilogy 'Time's eldest son' [16] as a duet for soprano and bass - an ensemble popular on the Continent but which never really caught on in England - and 'His golden locks' [17] as a vocal quartet. The lyrics are distinguished by charm and gentle wit - 'Time's eldest son' in particular ingeniously alludes to liturgical heads of Christian service in the cult of the Virgin Queen.

Orpheus in the underworld was a story especially important to renaissance musicians; at the heart of the story is the idea that the power of music is great enough - almost - to restore the dead to life. Fittingly, Monteverdi's Orfeo was the very first opera, but in fact English composers tackled the story too, and our last track, 'Orpheus I am' [18] tells a part of the story within a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, The Mad Lover; court musicians stage a masque for the benefit of a lovesick general, who has got it into his head that he should commit suicide in order to win the hand of the woman he loves in the next world. They dissuade him by showing him those who commit suicide for love suffer torments not happy union with their loves in the afterlife.

This is not the only Orpheus dialogue in the English renaissance repertoire, nor is our disc exhaustive of Dowland's dialogues: works written for viol consort would be a project for another day!

1. Come Again Sweet Love Doth Now Invite (John Dowland)
2. Say Love if Ever Thou Didst Find (John Dowland)
3. Tell Me True Love (John Dowland)
4. Tell Me Dearest What Is Love (Robert Johnson)
5. Awake Sweet Love (John Dowland)
6. Dowland's Bells (John Dowland)
7. Fair Cruel Nymph (Alfonso Ferrabosco II)
8. A Shepherd In a Shade (John Dowland)
9. Tell Me O Love (Alfonso Ferrabosco II)
10. O Sweet Flower (John Coprario)
11. Oft Thou Hast With Greedy Ear (John Coprario)
12. Coy Daphne Fled (John Danyel)
13. Who Is It That This Dark Night (Thomas Morley)
14. What Shall I Wish (Alfonso Ferrabosco II)
15. My Lord Chamberlain's Galliard (John Dowland)
16. Time's Eldest Son Then Sit Thee Down When Others Sing Venite (John Dowland)
17. His Golden Locks (John Dowland)
18. Orpheus I Am Charon O Charon (Anon Richard Balls William Lawes)

Listen to: the entire album.

Release date: 09/11/2015
English Ayres lives in Guildford England

Tagged as: Classical, Renaissance, Classical Singing, Composer: Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger, Composer: John Coprario, Composer: John Danyel, Composer: John Dowland, Composer: Robert Johnson, Composer: Thomas Morley, Composer: William Lawes, Lute

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2. Mesangeau's Experiments by Alex McCartney: Reflective, historically-informed performance on the lute
3. Honey From The Thorn by Tim Rayborn: Medieval and Middle Eastern music
4. Litha by Skarazula: medieval European, Turkish and Arabic music
5. Guitarscapes by Jeff Wahl: acoustic new age and jazz guitar.
6. Trad by Barry Phillips: Scandinavian folkish cello
7. Arpeggi by Federico Moscogiuri: Original and evocative lute music
8. The Four Seasons by Vivaldi by American Baroque: Spectacular Baroque and Classical chamber music
9. Messe a l'usage des Couvents by Craig Hanson: exquisitely moving Baroque organ music
10. In a Garden So Green, Lute Music of Scotland by Voices of Music: Lilting Renaissance & Baroque vocal interpretations
11. The Dawn of Joy by Shira Kammen: early folk and celtic music.
12. Mozart in the Age of Enlightenment by Seth Carlin: fortepiano music from the early 1800s
13. CD2-JS Bach-Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord by Ingrid Matthews and Byron Schenkman: baroque violin & harpsichord
14. Soulful Filling by General Fuzz: atmospheric downtempo
15. First Album by Thursday Group: melodic composed progressive Jazz
16. Inner by Curl: Groovy, French downtempo electro-rock songs
17. Nun Komm by The Bach Players: baroque instrumental and vocal gems
18. JS Bach (Inventions and Sinfonias) by Kathleen McIntosh: delicious harpsichord rarities
19. Every One a Chaconne by The Bach Players: baroque instrumental and vocal gems
20. Bach arranging and arranged by The Bach Players: baroque instrumental and vocal gems

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