John Holloway: Pavans and Fantasies from the Age of Dowland

Pavans and Fantasies from the Age of Dowland
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Artist: John Holloway, Monika Baer, Susanna Hefti, Martin Zeller, John Dowland
Genre: Classical
Label: ECM New Series

If you know John Dowland's wonderfully doleful Lachrimae, a masterpiece of early 17th-century English melancholia, you'll be surprised that John Holloway's new recording of its opening seven Pavans is played on violins. Holloway uses a lawerly approach to the punctuation of the printed title page to support his decision. His ensemble goes a long way to emulating the plaintive purity of a viol consort, and the playing style is also observantly expressive in its handling of scrunchy dissonances – more so, in fact, than quite a few viol ensembles. To my ears, the real issue is the absence of the characteristic trails of the lute part. The added works by Purcell, Matthew Locke and William Lawes are particularly fine. url.ie/kh67

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan is a music critic and Irish Times contributor