Songs of Passion

CD1 JOHN DOWLAND

1. Come Again! Sweet Love Doth Now Invite
2. Semper Dowland semper dolens
3. Go Crystal Tears
4. The King of Denmark's Galliard
5. Can She Excuse My Wrongs?
6. Lachrimae antiquae
7. A Dream
8. Sorrow, Stay
9. The Earl of Essex Galliard
10. Flow My Tears
11. Frog Galliard
12. Now, o Now, I Needs Must Part

CD2 HENRY PURCELL

1. If Love's a Sweet Passion
2. Strike the Viol
3. O Solitude, My Sweetest Choice
4. An Evening Hymn on a Ground
5. Chaconne
6. O Let Me Weep, For Ever Weep
7. Now the Night Is Chased Away
8. Overture
9. Ah Belinda!
10. Echo Dances of Furies
11. Thanks to These Lonesome Vales
12. The Witches's Dance
13. Thy Hand, Belinda... When I Am Laid in Earth

With Songs of Passion, a collection of vocal and instrumental music by John Dowland and Henry Purcell – English composers born nearly a century apart – mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre, lutenist Thomas Dunford and Ensemble Jupiter have created a companion to their previous albums, Eternal Heaven, Idylle and Amazone. Making guest appearances on Songs of Passion are four further singers of the rising generation: baritone Huw Montague Rendall, contralto Jess Dandy, tenor Laurence Kilsby and bass Alex Rosen. Dowland is known for his intimate evocations of amorous melancholy in his writing for voice and for lute, while the music of Purcell – the greatest British-born composer of the Baroque era – encompasses a rich diversity of moods and emotions. To the fore on Songs of Passion are two of Purcell’s works for the stage: The Fairy Queen and Dido and Aeneas. Dido’s famous lament, ‘When I am laid in earth’, forms the climax of the album.