Composer: John Cage, John Dowland
Performer: Thélème, Ziv Braha, Sting
Conductor: Jean-Christophe Groffe
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Aparté
Catalogue: AP330
Release: 2024
Size: 1.11 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Dowland: Song Books
01. Solo for Voice No. 49. The Year Begins to Be Ripe
Dowland: The Second Book of Songes
02. No. 4, Die not before thy day
03. No. 5, Mourn, mourn, day is with darkness fled
04. No. 3, Sorrow, sorrow, stay, lend true repentant tears
05. Cage: Five
Cage: Song Books
06. Solo for Voice No. 91
07. Dowland: Lady if you So Spight mee
08. Cage: Eight Whiskus
09. Cage: Dream
Dowland: The Second Book of Songes
10. No. 1, I saw my lady weep
11. No. 2, Flow my tears
12. Dowland: A Dream
13. Cage: She is Asleep
14. Cage: A Room
Dowland: The Second Book of Songes
15. No. 6, Time’s eldest son, old age, the heir of ease (First part)
16. No. 7, Then sit thee down and say thy ‘Nunc dimittis’ (Second part)
17. No. 8, When others sing ‘Venite exultemus’ (Third part)
18. Sting, Miller: Shape Of My Heart
Cage and Dowland: the two Johns, four hundred years apart, share a common taste for soberexpression, concise forms and intimate realisation – and for the pleasure that comes from words assuch.
Each cultivates this desire in his own way: Cageundertakes, like a tightrope walker, to approach the essence of musical thought with humour, lightness and depth; Dowland aims for the expression of feelings in their purest form.
Cultivating as always a fertile anachronism, Thélème brings together in ‘all we get is life’ the complete works for two voices and lute by Dowland and several compositions by Cage. And alongside superstar Sting, he offers a reworking of ‘Shape of My Heart’, a kind of 21st-century lute song, coming full circle in an album where Renaissance and present meet, enter into dialogue, mingle and merge to transcend the boundaries of aesthetics and genres.
Press – Reviews & features in Gramophone, The Strad, BBC Music Magazine, Rondo, Opera America, Opera Internartional, Opéra Magazine, Opera Now, Diapason, Classica, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, Télérama, LesEchos.