Nigel North "Go From My Window" CD

Nigel North "Go From My Window" CD

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A lovely recording of Dowland, Byrd and contemporaries which was named Gramophone 'Choice'.

Performance: 4 stars / Sound: 5 stars ‘He negotiates even the most intricate of these pieces with disarming ease and plays with a winning combination of freedom and rigour.' BBC Music Magazine

Choice: ‘Not only is the programme sagely chosen, it is also magnificently played. North [is] among the finest living lutenists.' Gramophone

‘North's collection...displays his skill and taste as a lutenist to the full. Integral to this music is the ability to weave seamless lines around an original theme.' The Independent

Nigel North has an unrivalled reputation as a lutenist. His style merges impeccable technique with a jazz-like improvisational ability, which makes repertoire like Dowland ideal. The great lutenist composers of the sixteenth century were masters of improvisation, but, of course, we have no concrete evidence of the forms that these improvisations took. 'The versions that are handed down to us in lute tablature are often so well worked out and complicated that they may represent a parallel track to the improvised version which we will never hear!' says North.

Of the composers represented on Go From My Window, Dowland needs no introduction. Of the previous generation, John Johnson is now less well known. He was one of Queen Elizabeth I's three court luteninsts for fifteen years. Employing his special style of 'division writing', Johnson wrote many beautiful solos and duets. As North says: 'While his 'Walsingham' is breathtakingly simple, 'Carman's Whistle' may sound simple but is actually technically very demanding. I doubt that even Johnson could have improvised this setting.'

Tracklisting

  1. Greensleeves (Attrib. to J. Dowland)
  2. Robyn Is to the Greenwood Gone
  3. Tinternell "Short Almain" (Version for Lute)
  4. My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home, P. 66
  5. My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home
  6. Walsingham
  7. Walsingham, P. 67
  8. The Old Medley
  9. Carman's Whistle
  10. John, Come Kiss Me Now
  11. The Leaves Be Greene
  12. Une jeune fillette
  13. The Spanish Pavan
  14. The Woods so Wild (Arr. for Lute)
  15. Go from My Window
  16. Go from My Window, P. 64
  17. Loth to Depart, P. 69