In Darkness Let Me Dwell
The past cross-fertilizes with the present on this album, and the result is music-making of profound beauty. Tenor John Potter, a core member of theHilliard Ensemble, here sets out to "reclaim" for today's audience the music of John Dowland. Even considering the Elizabethan penchant for melancholy, the saturnine Dowland stands out as an artist preoccupied with death and intimate with despair in all its varieties.  Music--as against our postmodern antidepressants--was the perfect anodyne, to which Dowland devoted himself both as performer (he was a famous lutenist) and composer; with his collectionLachrimae("Tears"), he produced one of the single greatest landmarks of Western instrumental music predating the high baroque, centering around the famous melody Dowland gave to his malady (also heard in the two versions here of the song "Flow My Tears").In Darkness Let Me Dwelljuxtaposes numbers fromLachrimaewith some of Dowland's songs, in which Potter becomes so steeped in each mood that it tells in wonderfully plaintive phrasing. Dowland originally wrote for lute and a consort of viols, but it's typical of this disc's innovatory spirit to hybridize baroque violin and lute with a quasi-"jazzy" double bass, saxophone, and bass clarinet, inspiring a high order of improvisatory gestures. Sometimes the whole ensemble takes on a gritty, darkly reedy cast, while it can change to sunnier colors in the more radiant moments of "Lachrimae Amantis." These performances highlight the songs' directness and universality, drawing you in deeper with each hearing, and replaying the eternal paradox of sadness turning to solace.--Thomas May