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Theatre of the Ayre, Elizabeth Kenny – The Masque of Moments (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:14 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Elizabeth Kenny’s Theatre of the Ayre reveals some of the most extraordinary music of the seventeenth century on The Masque of Moments, their debut recording for Linn.
Focusing on the ‘ayre’, the central part of a masque, it offers a fascinating glimpse of the audacious and experimental virtuosity that is often absent from our image of English music of this time.
Inspired by the achievements of the ‘Lutes and Voices’, Kenny developed The Masque of Moments in 2015, highlighting the glories of little-known vocal music from the Jacobean and Caroline masque.
The ‘lutes”plucked soundworld, of which this recording gives a hint, reflects a cornucopia of sounds used to create everything from a tavern scene to a reflection of paradise. The ‘voices’ come courtesy of Sophie Daneman, William Purefoy, Ian Wicks, Nicholas Mulroy, Giles Underwood, Rosanna Wicks and Salisbury Cathedral Choir.
Phantasm, Elizabeth Kenny – Dowland: Lachrimae or Seven Tears (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:31 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Summing up the Renaissance preoccupation with melancholy, this extraordinary collection of dance music for viols and lute includes Dowland’s ‘signature’ piece, Semper Dowland semper Dolens. Dowland reveals a personal world of sublime sadness, grief, anger and melancholy mollified by moments of joy and gladness.
A skilled lutenist, Dowland’s intricately-worked parts demand perfect synchronicity between Phantasm and Elizabeth Kenny, who rise to the technical and tempi challenges of marrying their instruments.
The popularity of Dowland’s music in his own lifetime continued through the centuries with Lawes, Jenkins and Gibbons all paying homage to Dowland’s ‘Tears’. Although freed from lyric constraints poetic images linger prompting Phantasm’s Laurence Dreyfus to describe this as ‘the most sensuously tuneful hour of music ever written’.