Dowland Lessons
The name John Dowland came to me in the context of a music history course. Our professor played some lute pieces on a CD and told us that our next class would have a special guest.
I went out and purchased my first Dowland CD shortly after that introduction; it was a recording of music for viol consort. In those days I tended to listen to my CDs over and over; and for some months in the bleakness of a Rochester winter I kept listening to Fretwork perform the Lachrimae which by style you knew was old, the year on the album cover only confirmed it: 1604.
(Since writing about this day in the store, I remember a girl also wanted this recording and I’d snatched it away from her; it has been a new release that was sitting on the counter near the checkout. She was miffed when the clerk said I’d grabbed the only one. Tee hee!)
The next week a chair was set before us in the room; the special guest was none other than Paul O’Dette, who came armed with a thirteen-course lute and a large binder of music. He sat right in front of me and it was a special experience; I can’t if he’d played only Dowland that day, but he was generous with his time and the next time I went CD shopping I hunted for his recordings and acclimated myself to more 400 year-old music.
This new recording, a single CD (O’Dette, for what it’s worth, has a full collection of Dowland on Harmonia Mundi) by Jonas Nordberg, is a feast for the ears. It is closely miked but, as the booklet explains, the emphasis on this recording is in the choice of gut strings, their length, and the tuning chosen (in this case, A is set to 392Hz). I think kudos go equally well to BIS’ recording engineers, who typically, as far as the label goes, do a good job; in this case they have managed to preserve a non-apologetic sound from the lute. The lute can be delicate but in this case it’s got a little heft; Nordberg also doesn’t shy away from dynamics with his playing which I find welcome. The closeness of the recording provides an intimate feeling without picking up too much extraneous noise or player’s sounds. It’s also been recorded in a space with ample reverb; my mind pictures a small room with hard walls and an nice high ceiling, perhaps in the context of a castle? Who is to say (BIS does, they report the location as Duvbo Church, in Sweden), but for my taste, it’s a perfect balance of ambiance and closeness and good projection.
Probably the most apt comparison would be the recording by Nigel North; I compared his second volume of Dowland from 2006 on Naxos. There’s a richness to that sound and an intimacy too; I compared both artists’ performing Semper Dowland semper dolens. Both artists do well to drive the music forward. I also compared the Frog Galliard which North had recorded earlier in a collection of Dowland Lessons. In both cases there was a smoothness or confidence from North that was admirable; ultimately I liked the sound of this new recording, even when Nordberg didn’t project as much comfort with the playing.
To my ears this music is most successful when an artist puts into the performance what didn’t get put into the music four hundred years ago, that sense of pulse, of dynamic shape, which comes together to shape the music beyond a succession of notes. And yes, some performances give me that whiff; in this case, I think Nordberg does an admirable job at trying to project some personality into these works.
That, combined with the gorgeous sound, would elevate this to become a great starter CD to the lute music of Dowland. Of course, if you are enchanted by this music and the sound world from which it comes, you may wish to simultaneously seek out the myriad option from Lindberg, North, O’Dette, and others.
As a personal comparison, if this has been waiting for me in Borders Books and Music in 1993 I might have thought differently about Dowland. But that, of course is the beauty of auditioning already recorded repertoire by a new generation, there are new shadows, highlights, and colors we get to enjoy.
