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Reviewer : Edward Breen This is an embarrassment of riches, almost overwhelmingly good. Lutenist Thomas Dunford and mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre are no strangers to praise in Gramophone's pages, and this fourth Erato album with the ensemble Jupiter will be no exception. Exploring Dowland and Purcell, two British composers separated by a mere century, they present a beautifully coherent programme with a star-studded line-up of their friends, rising stars Jess Dandy, Huw Montague Rendall, Laurence Kilsby and Alex Rosen, and their exquisite instrumentalists. All this is introduced with a touching booklet note from Dunford's parents, the gambists Jonathan Dunford and Sylvia Abramowicz.
Talking to Mark Seow (9/25), Dunford emphasised how Dowland was the songbook of his teen years, and indeed the emotion in the opening 'Come again! Sweet love doth now invite' is immediate, raw and compelling. The solo verses, especially the contrast between 'Out alas!' in Rosen's oaky tones and the accelerating final verse with the whole vocal ensemble, are enough to justify the title, 'Songs of Passion', but furthermore the instrumental playing is so vital and responsive it's as if Dunford has Dowland on speed-dial. Certainly he knows these works from the inside: lining up the melodic contours of The King of Denmark's Galliard (that opening lute solo!) and 'Can she excuse my wrongs?' or Frog Galliard and 'Now, O now, I needs must part' reveals a fluency and sympathy in mixing the amorous with the melancholic that can only be found through living with this music for a long time. Added to that, there's dance in all the right places: I couldn't sit still in The King of Denmark's Galliard and neither will you. The flexible relationship between text and tempo, another Dunford specialism, is also very much in evidence in 'Can she excuse my wrongs?', something of a masterclass in intimate urgency.
The Purcell half of the programme includes excerpts from The Fairy Queen and Dido and Aeneas, with the famous Lament as its climax. Desandre's voice, at once pristine but beguilingly dreamy when required, shines brightly in Purcell's longer phrases. 'If love's a sweet passion' has a beautiful lull and exuberance that contrasts with the tempting invitation to dance that is 'Strike the viol, tingling with toe-tapping melodic invention from the Jupiter Instrumental Ensemble, and the emotional content of 'O let me weep' has a powerful intensity reminiscent of Pina Bausch's Café Müller, the voice and violin duetting with heart-rending sympathy.
The mini version of the mini-opera Dido and Aeneas is compelling if not frustrating in its brilliance: surely the whole opera must follow soon? The crispness of the introduction, with silvery violin-playing by Louise Ayrton and Ruiqi Ren, sets out one of the most exciting fast sections I've ever heard, after whichDesandre's 'Ah! Belinda' is naturalistic and vivid. Her Lament is exquisitely shaped, leading to climactic repetitions of 'Remember me', the last of which is meltingly soft and leads into a similarly melting violin line.
There is a ghost track, a composition by Dunford that opens
with magical pizzicato, and not wanting to spoil the moment I just wonder if
somewhere in a bedroom right now there's a(nother) kid clutching a guitar (or
lute) and experiencing a life-changing introduction to this music
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