Unsurpassed in his day as a lute virtuoso, John Dowland (1563'1626) today continues to delight singers, musicians, and music lovers alike. This collection of 45 songs includes all the works in Dowland's original third and fourth books of lute songs, the composer's contributions to his son's anthology of 1610, and a dance for solo guitar. Content :
THE THRID AND LAST BOOKE
I. Farewell too fair
II. Time stands still
III. Behold a wonder here
IV. Daphne was not so chaste
V. Me, me and none but me
VI. When Phoebus first did Daphne love
VII. Say Love if ever thou didst find
VIII. Flow not so fast ye fountains
IX. What if I never speed'
X. Love stood amaz'd
XI. Lend your ears to my sorrow
XII. By a fountain where I lay
XIII. Oh what hath overwrought
XIV. Farewell unkind farewell
XV. Weep you no more, sad fountains
XVI. Fie on this feigning
XVII. I must complain
XVIII It was a time when silly bees could speak
XIX. The lowest trees have tops
XX. What poor astronomers are they
XXI. Come when I call (for two voices and two lutes)
A PILGRIMES SOLACE
I. Disdain me still
II. Sweet stay awhile
III. To ask for all thy love
IV. Love those beams
V. Shall I strive with words to move (Mignarda, a galliard is Dowland's title for the solo lute version of the lyre Shall I strive with words to move.
VI. Were every thought an eye
VII. Stay Time awhile thy flying
VIII. Tel me true Love (with chorus)
The next three with treble and bass viols ofr violin and cello:
IX. Go nightly cares
X. From silent night
XI. Lasso vita mia
XII. In this trembling shadow
XIII. If that a sinner's sighs
A three-part work:
XIV. Thou mighty God
XV. When David's life
XVI. When the poor cripple
XVII. Where sin sore wounding
XVIII. My heart and tongue were twins
The next with chorus:
XIX. Up merry mates
XX. Welcome black night
XXI. Cease these false sports
THREE AYRES FROM A MUSICALL BANQUET
Far from triumphing Court
Lady if you so spite me
In darkness let me dwell
GALLIART TO LACHRIMAE
A lute solo from A Pilgrimes Solace, transcribed for guitar

A rare work for the Lute-based Theorbo. Below is the programme note from the composer.In July 1998 I decided that I would use a theorbo in Havoc a piece I was writing for the 1999 Proms (premiere September 8th 1999). Since my knowledge of the instrument was negligible I contacted David (The Orbo) Miller and appealed for help since I knew he would be playing in the Proms piece. He kindly and with admirable patience showed me how the instrument worked and I began writing groundwork as a technical exercise - hence one meaning of the title. The other is that it is a set of variations over a ground bass.Since the theorbo possesses eight diapason bass strings - whichare plucked like those of a harp not stopped with the left and - it seemed sensible to use these for the ground bass which consists simply of a rising eight-note scale using all diapason strings in turn. This ground is stated at the beginning and developed through 16 variations. Nos 1 to 7 are straightforward except that some of them compress the ground into itself. Nos 8 to 16 are in stretto: they are gradually overlapped with each other the new ground beginning one note earlier each time. The climax of the piece comes at variations 10 to 11; variations 12 to 14 bring it gradually down to earth; no. 15 is quiet and puts the decorated ground in relaxed canon with itself (in octaves using the top and bottom strings of the instrument). Variation 16 strips the ground of decoration putting tight scrunchy chords over it and the piece ends with the lowest diapason string (G) a quiet raspberry ripple of the other seven diapason strings and a final harmonic G to tell us that our little journey is over. I hope you enjoy the scenery.Giles Swayne