John Dowland - Fantasies No. 3 & No. 4

Описание: Farewell Fancy (Chromatic fantasia), for lute, P 3 & Farewell (on "In Nomine"), fantasia for lute, P 4

Nigel North, lute

Biographers of John Dowland can find no reasonable explanation why Queen Elizabeth would not hire him as her Royal Lutenist when the position fell open in 1594. Dowland already had achieved bachelor's degrees in music from both Oxford and Cambridge (he would later earn a doctorate, as well), and was well-known among his contemporaries for his lute-playing; his music was said to be so fine it could "ravish human sense." He was already embarking on a compositional career that would enrich English music by scores of excellent songs with lute accompaniment, and 100 pieces for solo lute covering every genre of the day. Though he never published his collected lute music as he did the songs, Dowland's work for this instrument circulated widely in manuscript and cemented his reputation as one of the greatest composers for that instrument ever. He worked within its idiom yet stretched its potential.

Dowland's Farewell on "In Nomine" stands in a unique position within his lute music. By his curious choice of musical materials in this piece, Dowland is locating himself at the absolute center of English instrumental music. A century before, the Englishman John Taverner had composed a popular Mass on the plainsong Gloria tibi trinitas. The Benedictus of Taverner's Mass circulated seperately and quickly spawned a huge complex of instrumental pieces emulating it. These pieces became vehicles for composers to show off contrapuntal mastery and clever invention. Every important English composer in the sixteenth century seems to have written at least one piece of music for instrumental consort that uses a long-note cantus firmus taken from Taverner's "In nomine" section; later composers such as Christopher Tye and William Byrd left numerous "In nomines." This lute work is Dowland's only contribution to the genre, but is the only surviving "In nomine" for it.

Dowland places Taverner's cantus firmus melody baldly in the highest voice, and weaves a fantastic net of counterpoint beneath it. Indeed, though he titles the piece "Farewell," a name he uses for only one other lute solo (a highly chromatic and difficult one), it properly belongs with his many Fantasias. The lower "voices" of the lute gradually shift through a number of different contrapuntal gambits and textures -- different imitative motives, syncopation and chromaticism, a dancelike change of meter, hocket, culminating in virtuosic passagework at the end. Dowland took a generation of music for five people and proved he was capable of playing it with five fingers. [allmusic.com]

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