Semper Dowland

An interesting thing about the first Dowland Project album (In darkness let me dwell) is that, if you search for it on Google, the first reference you find is All About Jazz and the second is ClassicsToday. It's very rare for these two sites to discuss the same album.
Dowland Project was born from an idea by John Potter, a tenor formerly of the Hilliard Ensemble, and therefore with a decidedly classical background. He also collaborated with Stephen Stubbs (chitarrone, baroque guitar), Maya Homburger (baroque violin), John Surman (soprano saxophone, bass clarinet), and Barry Guy (double bass).
Classical beats jazz 3 to 2. However, it must be remembered that Barry Guy is versatile, with his musical experience ranging from jazz to classical music, all the way to extreme improvisation, and John Surman is a great saxophonist, also capable of moving from jazz to European improvised music and electronic music.
Their mission is to breathe new life into 17th-century songs and madrigals, bringing back that sense of improvisation and freshness they must have had 400 years ago.
And to make This began, in an unsuspecting era (in 1999), with an album entirely dedicated to Dowland, "In Darkness Let Me Dwell," released by the ECM guys (there's already a second one, "Care-charming Sleep," dedicated to various madrigalists).

Nothing to say. From my point of view, it's really beautiful. The inclusion of the wind instruments and violin is wonderful. Potter sings really well, and the others are no different.
The only thing that leaves me perplexed is the whole new life thing. In my opinion, this is a beautiful, almost classical performance (or at least classical in spirit). It certainly manages to reproduce the spirit with which Dowland played in his time and shortly after, but the feeling it gives me is always of listening to something (wonderfully) ancient.

From "In darkness let me dwell" I'll let you listen to: Come Again, of which I'll also include the lyrics, and an instrumental piece, Lachrimae Verae.

For more recent listening, I'll send you to the playlists on YouTube.

Come again,
sweet love doth now invite,
thy graces that refrain
to do me due delight.
To see, to hear,
to touch, to kiss,
to die with thee again
in sweetest sympathy

Come again,
that I may cease to mourn
through thy unkind disdain
for now left and forlorn.
I sit, I sigh,
I weep, I faint,
I die, in deadly pain
and endless misery

Gentle love,
draw forth thy wounding dart:
Thou canst not pierce her heart;
For I that do approve.
By sighs and tears
more hot than are
thy shafts, did tempt while she
for scanty tryumphs laughs

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