Sting appears on the cover of "BBC Music, and this classic music magazine features him in their feature article, "Renaissance Man," by Oliver Condy, pp. 29-33.
One Sting quote: "The rules are there to subvert. I feel that my job as a pop artist is to develop as a musician and bring into my sphere elements that aren't necessarily pop."
Classic lutenist Edin Karamazov accompanies Sting on the cd (Songs from the Labyrinth, DG) and plays one duet with him, and was the one to suggest that they do a Dowland album together.
Speaking of Dowland recordings Sting says, "I thought that no one was doing what I could do; I don't have that trained operatic voice but this music was composed around 1600 and the bel canto style wasn't invented until 100 years later when they had a full auditorium which encouraged a certain vocal technique. I imagine people would have sung without that technique. I feel that there isan intimacy to this music and I can do something that's really me- and still, I hope, respect the music."

Karamazov says Sting is the ideal musical colleague: "His voice is so pure and so child-like. It's perfect for renaissance music. He is a great musician- a natural-born singer with a beautiful voice."

The record, "Songs from the Labyrinth," in the words of the article's author, "is (now) in the hands of the dreaded critics..." From the posts of this thread, it is evident that some of them are contributors to mudcat.

Sting's words on the release: "If people like it, public or critics, then that's the cream on the cake. If I was doing a Dowland record to make money, you'd shoot me! I did it out of love, I did it out of curiosity, a sense of adventure... I can't really explain why. My instinct told me it was right for me."

Sting sang Dowland at LSO St Lukes on about Oct. 4 (lso.co.uk/lsostlukes)

Digression: BBC Music, in a review by Terry Blain of Paul McCartney's new recording, "Ecce cor meum" (EMI) gives 4 stars (out of 5), but says the results ... are in no way sharply distinctive."
Blain says "The classical learning curve, however, seems somehow to have squeezed much of the lyrical fecundity and musical inventiveness out of one of the greatest melodists in the history of popular music history."