"I write of melancholy by being busy to avoid melancholy," explained Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621. The music of John Dowland invited and indulged the then fashionable state of melancholy, and Andreas Scholl here explores that most rewarding area of repertoire. His plaintively light counter-tenor voice hauntingly negotiates the swells and swoons in the eloquent company of lute and viols. Scholl includes pieces by John Ward, Robert Johnson, William Byrd, John Bennet, Patrick Mando, Alfonso Ferrabosco II and Richard Mico, and the disc includes instrumental numbers as well as songs. Listen out for the whistling on track 11. The bonus DVD offers a 20-minute documentary on the recording sessions. --MICHAEL DERVAN, The Irish Times, 13 June 2008
Last year, it was Sting who surprised us all with a recording of lute-accompanied songs by Elizabethan composer John Dowland. Now the outstanding German countertenor Andreas Scholl sets the record straight with a generous helping of songs and instrumental interludes by Dowland, Byrd and contemporaries such as Robert Johnson, John Bennet, Alfonso Ferrabosco and dear old Anonymous. The exquisite melancholy pervading the disc, and its companion DVD, is the perfect balm to beguile you through a wistful summer evening. --Anthony Holden, The Observer, 25 May 2008
Thanks in part to Sting s musically less than satisfactory accounts of Dowland lute songs in 2006, the doleful English composer (motto: semper Dowland, semper dolens always Dowland, always lamenting) is newly fashionable. Andreas Scholl is back at Harmonia Mundi with a second disc devoted to Dowland and his contemporaries (Robert Johnson, William Byrd, John Bennet, Patrick Mando and Alfonso Ferrabosco, an Italian violist at the courts of Elizabeth I and James I). While the German countertenor can t rival the British pop star s English diction, his singing is more technically accomplished and vocally alluring. There is surely no voice more ethereal-sounding among contemporary falsettists than Scholl s, and he lavishes a ravishingly beautiful sound on the Dowland hits : Go, crystal tears; Now, oh now, I needs must part; From silent night; Come, heavy sleep. The danger of monotony is averted with the interspersing of viol Fantasias by John Ward and Richard Mico, and of Dowland s lute solos, Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens, The Lady Rich, Her Galliard and A Fancy, exquisitely played by Julian Behr. For fans of both Dowland and Scholl, this is a collector s item. --Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times, June 26th 2008

Customer Rating:
Summary: Pure delight
Comment: Delightful, exquisite. Some echo, but otherwise lovely sound. It took me a while to accept the countertenor sound as anything other than a good party trick. But I now love the sound as much as the output from any decent tenor, baritone, saoprano or mezzo.

There's been some criticism that Scholl might be overstylised for this material - but that is just Scholl's wonderful technique. If you want a more informal style, then try Sting's take on Dowland. Personally - I like both.

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