Songs of Passion

Songs of Passion: Purcell, Dowland
Thomas Dunford, Lea Desandre
Jupiter Ensemble
Erato


This is an embarrassment of riches, almost overwhelmingly good. Lutenist Thomas Dunford and Mezzo soprano Lea Desandre are no strangers to praise in Gramophone pages, and this fourth Erato album with the Jupiter Ensemble 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 liner note from Dunford's parents the gambists Jonathan Dunford & Sylvia Abramowicz.

Talking to Mark Seow (09/25) Dunford emphasized 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 to the accelerating final verse with the whole vocal ensemble is 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 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, Ruiqi Ren sets out one of the most exciting fast-sections I've ever heard after which Desandre's Ah Belinda! is naturalistic and vivid. [...]

There is a ghost track, [...] I just wonder if somewhere in a bedroom right now there's a(nother) kid clutching a guitar (or lute) experiencing a life-changing introduction to this music...



To read the full text of this review please visit Gramophone.co.uk (Awards issue 2025)