Dear friends and patrons
On 20 February 1626, John Dowland was buried in London. Nearly four centuries later, his music still feels dangerously alive — intimate, vulnerable, and startlingly modern. This week, we commemorate that anniversary with two rare live performances in Cape Town. Dowland is often remembered as the poet of melancholy — but his world is far richer: desire, wit, obsession, collapse, prayer, grace, and finally balance. In a world that rarely allows us to sit quietly with our own emotions, this music offers exactly that space. Not spectacle. Not noise. But something steady and deeply human.
After having fed ChatGpt a steady diet of Elizabethan poetry for the last few weeks, it was able to come up with this poem (who is up for setting it for lute and voice?):
Upon the Burial of Master Dowland, Yet His Music Living
Here lies he laid whom sable thoughts once crown’d,
Whose tears were tun’d to silver-stricken string;
Cold is his dust beneath Blackfriars’ ground,
Yet warm his grief, yet quick his sorrow sing.
Time clos’d his eyes — but not his sounding art;
Death seal’d his lips — but not his speaking tone.
For every lute that wakes a wounded heart
Restores his pulse and makes his breath our own.
If love still burns, if longing still hath breath,
If mortal hearts yet ache, yet plead, yet yearn —
Then Dowland lives, and mocks at Death’s cold death:
For while we hear him, he doth still return.
Come then, kind souls — let not his music fade;
Attend, and prove that tears are never vain.
He died — ’tis true — yet see what life he made:
In every chord he rises yet again.
A reminder of the concert details:
CONCERTS
Four hundred years after his burial, John Dowland still knows exactly where it hurts. Diving into Dowland brings together some of his most beloved songs — from breathless Elizabethan flirtation to devastating melancholy — performed by singers who have just explored this repertoire in masterclasses with the Lutesong Consort. Expect famous favourites, bold young voices, seasoned artistry, and all the emotional drama the Renaissance can muster. If you’ve ever loved unwisely, despaired elegantly, or sighed theatrically… this one’s for you.
With singers Anna du Plessis, Anna Telford, Tasmin Titus, Bevan Timm, Zac Rosenberg, Matthew de Jager, Ben Anderson, Aaron Juritz, Keaton Manwaring, Lente Louw (director), Uwe Grosser (lute) and Colleen Oxtoby (viola da gamba).This programme draws on some of Dowland’s most expressive and introspective songs from his final publication, A Pilgrimes Solace, Dowland’s last and most introspective publication — music that moves from courtly persuasion to collapse, prayer, grace and, ultimately, balance. The concert will be performed in original Elizabethan pronunciation (OP). Featuring Elsabé Richter, Lente Louw, Willem Bester, and Keaton Manwaring (voices), Uwe Grosser (lute), with Rosamund Roth and Rebekka Sandmeier (viols).
Tickets are on Quicket: https://qkt.io/0cADPC
