Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: CapriUni
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 12:22 PM

Last night, my local PBS station aired an episode about Sting's making of this album, filmed mostly in his home, featuring interviews with Dowland scholars, along with his performance of some of the songs. Here is the official site for the show: Great Performances: Songs From the Labyrinth.

During the show, Sting makes the statement (that I have seen several times before, in my career as a student of literature) that the "melancholy" celebrated by Elizabethan artists is distinct from our modern understanding of clinical depression: "melancholy" is noble, and a philosophical outlook on the meaning of life; depression is just a sickness.

...After hearing the lyrics and tunes of these songs, however, I'm not so sure (especially Come, Heavy Sleep). I suspect that anyone making such an argument has had the good fortune not to know what real depression feels like.

However, I do think that there is something noble in these songs of melancholy -- a fight and striving to break out of depression's isolation, to communicate, as clearly as you can, what you are feeling. That's a fight for life, and that's noble.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Pauline L
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 12:58 PM

I just listened to Kathleen Battle singing Dowland songs on her CD in which she is accompanied by Christopher Parkening.   Her voice is sweet and clear and her diction excellent, unlike Sting. I still like Sting's singing and musicianship, even though he doesn't have a pretty voice. My real surprise on comparing the two recordings is that I prefer Sting's lute playing to Parkening's guitar playing.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Pauline L
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 10:40 AM

I've heard Kathleen battle and I've heard Sting. I like them both, although their styles are very different. As PDQ Bach said, "If it sounds good, it is good."

You can hear extensive sound samples and read what Sting wrote about learning to play the lute and singing the music on his DG website.

That archlute is complex and fascinating, and I love the way Sting plays it. Can someone tell me more about it?

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Nov 06 - 01:09 PM

By this time everyone has completed their dissection of Sting and his performance, stored the parts in formalin, and rendered their opinion, informed or not, but here are a couple of footnotes.

The reviewer of the cd in BBC Magazine gave it three stars- very good, but not great. He liked Sting's approach to the vocals.

In the August 2006 issue of BBC Music, reviewer Paul Riley gives lutenist Nigel North five stars (tops!) for his cd, "DOWLAND- Lute Music, vol. 1: Fancyes, Dreams & Spirits," Naxos 8.557586.
"Pre-eminently the lutenist's lutenist, North is steeped in the music- and technically beyond reproach." ... Elevated music-making indeed. And at bargain price, a steal!"

Quoting further from the review, Dowland has been called "one of the great 'blues' artists of the 16th century by Joanna MacGregor," and "North does melancholy to the manner born;..."

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: RB3
Date: 22 Nov 06 - 12:09 PM

I'm familiar with that second meaning of "to die" through being a student of Shakespeare. Knowing of this simple idiom/slang can transform many lines of Elizabethan and Jacobian writing from romantic hyperbole to earthy humor.

That puts a whole other spin on Hamlet's "To Be Or Not To Be" speech, doesn't it? :)
-RB3

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Mhairi Lawson
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 07:09 AM

The rendition of the song not by Dowland on 'Labyrinth' is very expressive and quite stylistic - the vocal multitracking gives me seasickness, and the elongated diphthongs are hysterical - it's definitely not boring like many classical recordings certainly are...

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 12:40 AM

Do you think that this attraction will last longer than his attempt at Pirate Shanties?

Barry

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: autolycus
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 04:28 PM

"Classical music" is a familiar,if not satisfactory term, signifying art music. Whereas Don is quite right in another sense of the term.

   If I go to a classical music concert, I'd expect anythng from "Sumer is a-coming in" to Jonathan Harvey, and not usually including pop,jazz,blues,rock,military,folk,popular (Berlin,Porter etc.),gospel,cxountry,world. You're supposed to get my drift without nitpicking.

   in THAT sense, Dowland is an art composer.

   The boundaries are not watertight,and are blurred.


   I think it's terrific that non-classical singers sing art music in their own ways. I doubt that in Dowland's day, only professionals sang his songs. And surely we can decide individually for ourselves who we like singing whatever. Is there universal agreement about the quality or pleasureableness of ANY performer?   Really? Let a thousand singers bloom,I say. And it's up to us to be discriminating.
I look forward to Madonna's Dowland, Sugarbabes' Dowland, the traffic wardens', the accountants'.


(Tho' I'd love to have heard the imaginary disc 'Victor Silvester plays Schoenberg).




    ivor

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 06:37 AM

Sting's newest gig was Sunday evening, during the 13. bestowal of the Echo Classic Award, in the Munich Sinfony Hall.

"Bild" (the German "gun paper" - you must hold it horizontally, otherwise the blood drops out) reported rather patronizingly:
The performance of the rock legend - totally bizarre. He muttered 16th century songs endearingly, picking the lute honestly. And discovered at the end: "I'll stay a rock musician!" Better so.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 12:09 PM

Just listened to part of the Sting broadcast on Classic FM, with some of the songs played. It's available to play or download here: Sting on ClassicFM.

Mick

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 03:49 AM

I wuz wrong - Sting on Classic FM 4pm they said - in discussion with one of the regular presenters. (GMT +1 hour here).

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 04:46 PM

Yes, that's it! Thanks, Mick. Now, I can look up the whole song.

I'm familiar with that second meaning of "to die" through being a student of Shakespeare. Knowing of this simple idiom/slang can transform many lines of Elizabethan and Jacobian writing from romantic hyperbole to earthy humor.

And in an era where sex has become an Internet commodity, anything that gets us back to the idea of an intimate, sensual conversation is a good thing, in my (not so) humble opinion.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 03:56 PM

CapriUni

The song sounds like Come Again:

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.

from The First Book of Songes or Ayres.

Diana Poulton agrees about the meaning, writing of the song "...(and surely here the words 'to die' are used in the figurative sense, meaning to reach the final transports of physical love)"!

Mick

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 03:19 PM

I know there are some here, in the context of Sting singing Dowland, who would like a "reprieve", but I really think, from context, you meant you were looking for a "reprise". :-)

So true, DaveO, thanks for the correction.

There are many things in my life, however, that do have me wanting a reprieve. So, maybe that was a Freudian slip.

Anyway, back to my original question: Did anyone here catch and recognize that song snippet? I don't remember the words exactly, but the refrain had a line something like:

"To see, to hear, to touch, to die..."

(And since, in Dowland's time, "die" was a euphanism for sexual climax, such a song on national TV is a reprieve from such current bawdy fare like "It's hard out here for a pimp")

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Desdemona
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 12:52 PM

How fascinating! I love Dowland, and have a number of 'traditional'recordings of his music by the likes of Paul O'Dette (a few years ago I saw him at Harvard with Ellen Hargis--an unbelievably pure voice!--and David Douglass; it was astonishing, and the arch-lute *IS* a crazy-looking instrument, all right!); this should be really interesting to hear how Sting interprets it. Personally, I've never been a big fan, but his willingness to branch out this way is admirable; I'll definitely give it a listen!

~D

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Hank Williams
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 12:37 PM

Here's a spirited discussion. I haven't heard Dowland's name mentioned for a hell of a long time... Congratulations, Sting, for bringing a worthy obscurity forward.

Now if it were that opportunistic wanker Elvis Costello (currently "rescuing" New Orleans music with the severely compromised Allen Toussaint), I'd feel more critical. But Costello, whose "passionate" affectation is a strangulated bleat, is mercifully preoccupied. Who didn't love his furry, bearded, excursion into The Grateful Dead, or his rifling though Country standards? And his resurrection of Burt Bacharach was priceless. But wait: he'll find out about Monteverdi one day and be back with a new pair of glasses and a different hat. If you really want to bash a popstar, I vote for Declan.

But Sting gets a pass on this one. He's showing rockers and popstars that it's possible to grow up, dig into other forms, and continue developing as artists. His singing (in the two clips that I've heard) is markedly different from his pop style, and those who are waving the "posh" stick are off base.

He'll be bashed for not doing it to the standard which doesn't actually exist, and he'll be bashed for having a pretty wife, and he'll be bashed for thinking he's better than us because he's not overweight, but not by me.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Strollin' (at the Mill)
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 11:41 AM

He sounds a bit like 'Amazing Blondel'. But not as good.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 11:32 AM

CapriUni said, in part:

I was kind of hoping there'd be a reprieve, but sadly, no.

I know there are some here, in the context of Sting singing Dowland, who would like a "reprieve", but I really think, from context, you meant you were looking for a "reprise". :-)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 08:54 AM

Classic FM - Sat - evening I believe.

I will be I will be two-stepping, onestepping &/or Mamou Waltzing.

Bristol - The Folk House - that's where.

http://bristolcajunfestival.com/

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 06:37 AM

Your loss, Anon. Sorry.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Guest (better remain Anon)
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 06:34 AM

I like Playford, Praetorius etc, but Dowland leaves me cold.

Bought a Dowland LP in a car boot a few years ago to see if any of the pieces were playable (pinchable), but found that it was difficult to distinguish any actual tunes - they were more a "Stream of Consciousness" than tunes. A bit like Wagner - always promising to reach a really rousing tune but never quite getting there (with a very few obvious exceptions)! Tried the Dowland LP at 33 rpm, then 45 rpm, then, in desperation 78 rpm - still no recognisable tunes!

Sorry folks.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:25 PM

Wilfried
My attitude was not so much critical as amused that he was either unaware of the existence of more humble homes, or thought them irrelevant.
I don't know what it is like where you live, but if the lute owners of former times are the equivalent of those who own pianos today they would be a minority - certainly nowhere near 'every home', even among townspeople or the bourgeoisie.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: CapriUni
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:00 PM

I was watching this Monday's Studio 60, and loved the song Sting was doing (in the plot of the show), to test the sound system -- just casually, on the stage, so it wasn't announced, and we didn't get the full song or the title. But it sure sounded like music from the 1600's to me. I was kind of hoping there'd be a reprieve, but sadly, no.

Did anyone here catch the song, and if so, know the title? I'd like to find it again, and maybe learn it -- and it certainly had a bawdy refrain (or even erotic), if you know the 17th century euphanisms.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 10:28 AM

Jim - First let me thank you for starting this thread. Having practiced Renaissance music on the guitar (no money for a lute) and researching a lot of music I found a lot of folk songs with these composers, some of them more than bawdy.

I absolutely agree with Ian about his statement: It is wrong to think of Dowland as a classical composer: in Dowland's time the idea of 'classical music' hadn't been invented, ...
We can hear the difference of approaches in Jim's first post: Unknown performer 1 - Unknown performer 2. In 1 you can hear the choir thinking "it is old and classic, it must be celebrated", while in 2 they are just singing the song as joyfully as it should be.

Topsie is criticizing: ... he said that in Dowland's time, 400 years ago, 'every home contained a song book, and a lute'. Methinks this man sees the past through rose-coloured spectacles. But Sting seems to be right; it wasn't every house where you found a song book and a lute, but with the townsmen, or should I say bourgeois, it is true. The class who owns a piano now owned a lute in former times. (It also is reported of D. Martin Luther, who used the lute for composing his hymns, and played just for fun).

If Sting goes back to the roots, let him do it. If it sounds well, the better.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 09:16 AM

PEDANT ALERT: Please delete 'geordie' from my last post, and add 'Wallsend'

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 09:07 AM

Well he's from Wallsend, so not really a Geordie.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 05:25 AM

I bought the CD yesterday and played it through several times last night. I like it. For all the sting haters, just imagine a geordie bloke singing Elizabethan songs in a plain voice, accompanied by a world class lutenist, because that's what it is. It isn't a 'rock God' production. He makes a fine job of the four part harmonies on 'Fine Knacks.'
I prefer it to the florid Operatic versions I have owned in the past.If you try and sing along with it, you should find that Mr sting has put a hell of an effort in his breathing control and phrasing.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 05:21 AM

I have only heard Sting singing Dowland on programmes such as the Culture Show and I really wanted to like it, but I found his voice flat and dreary. I can't bring myself to search out any more recordings as the sound made me feel really depressed.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 05:04 AM

'McGrath of Harlow' - you're right of course! I suppose I should congratulate Sting for breaking the mould ... but why do still despise the bastard? Probably because there's still a feeling that he's just another rock demi-god indulging himself and expecting his adoring worshippers to fall over themselves to praise him.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 07:47 PM

If the nameless one detects a difference in his accent/voice, perhaps it coudl be that this time he's singing without affectation.

Seems to me that he is pretty straightforward in his singing here.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 06:49 PM

Listen to them, GUEST. No "posh affectation" that I could detect. He sings them pretty straight out.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 06:35 PM

i'd have more respect for this project if stig
just sang it in his normal accent/voice
instead of that 'put on' posh affectation

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 06:18 PM

Shimrod, you might wait until that actually happens before you run out and lynch Sting.

I don't think anybody said anything about "innovative." But Sting's venture into this music will certainly make it better known to a wider range of people who would find his singing of it more palatable than the singing of, say, Peter Pears. And it has made it more accessible to singers such as myself, who, I admit, was perhaps a bit intimidated by the fact that the songs of Dowland and other Renaissance composers are heard sung only by classically trained tenors and counter-tenors, so assume that my deeper voice is not suitable for this kind of song.

I don't mean this as any kind of put-down to Sting, but hearing him sing these songs and bringing them off nicely, I ask myself, "Well, if he can do it, why can't I?"

There you have it.

It's interesting to note that often the same people who say that Sting's voice is wrong for these songs are the same people who run out and up-chuck at the mention of Richard Dyer-Bennet, whose voice would conventionally be considered perfect for these songs.

Since when should a particular type of music be limited to a small, select coterie? And why should a particular popular singer be bad-mouthed because he has the guts to follow his own musical interests wherever they lead him and breaks the mold in the process? Just because he's best known for one type of music, why should he be restricted to doing only that? Who makes these rules, anyway?

Perhaps Sting's recording will precipitate a renaissance of interest in Renaissance songs.

And perhaps that's innovative after all.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 05:43 PM

Shimrod - you sound very much like you'd favour cursing the darkness over lighting a candle...

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 05:19 PM

Mr Firth,

Actually I do have 'rational' reasons for 'hating' Sting (my mother taught me never to hate anyone - but I do despise the bastard!). You see I think that our entire culture has been hi-jacked by commercial rock music and bloody rock stars. This 'virus' has cheapened and degraded everything. Music has become a meaningless and monotonous noise to be passively consumed along with (especially in the UK) massive quantities of alcohol and drugs - the latter, of course, in emulation of the grossly overpaid and over-hyped rock stars.

There was a time when music was beautiful (yes, even rock music was, whilst not exactly beautiful, at least exciting, once).

So, Sting has discovered Dowland, has he? How long before he adds electric guitars and a drum kit?

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 04:44 PM

I can't see why Sting's approach is deemed so innovative. Loads of folkies have had a bash at Dowland and Campion in recent years (Maddy Prior... Jim Moray... John Connelly...). Is it just old Stingo just has a bigger marketing budget?

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 04:31 PM

RB3 said:

I absolutely don't think it's valid to say that he's singing it wrong or he shouldn't sing it because he's not trained that way, because if the only people allowed to sing and play music were the ones who were trained in specific ways, music of many types would simply die out.

If only the finest bird might sing, the forest would be a very silent place.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 04:16 PM

I recall sitting with a couple of friends in The Folklore Center in Seattle back about 1960 when the proprietor of the shop was playing some records from a shipment that had just come in. One was a recording of Win Stracke singing folk songs and ballads, accompanied on the guitar by Richard Pick.

Win Stracke was deeply involved in folk music, had appeared on Studs Terkel's program many times, and was one of the co-founders, with Frank Hamilton, of the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. I don't know if Stracke had studied voice or not, but he had a very smooth, rich baritone and he sounded trained. Richard Pick was a classic guitarist, had established his own classic guitar school in Chicago, and had written a couple of excellent manuals for beginning and intermediate guitar students. Indeed, my first classic guitar teacher started me with one of Richard Pick's books, First Lesson for Classic Guitar (I've always thought it a touch ironic that a classic guitarist—who uses his right-hand fingers to play with—should have a surname like "Pick."). Pick, of course, was playing a classic, nylon-string guitar, and his accompaniments struck me as tastefully restrained as befit the songs, with no classical pyrotechnics. It was a very well done recording with good songs well sung. But—it was obviously not a field recording.

As we sat and listened, a singer who had just blown in from Berkeley (hitchhiked up with his guitar) walked in, listened for about thirty seconds, then turned purple and had a temper tantrum. He pointed at the turntable and shouted, "That man" (having no idea of who "that man" was) "has no right to sing those songs! He's an opera singer!" (which he wasn't, nor was he singing like one, but his voice was smooth and rich) "People like that shouldn't be allowed to sing folk songs!"

Well, now! And this from a guy who was a self-proclaimed anarchist!

And later, at a song-fest, he took off on me the same way. I've taken voice lessons, but I don't think I sound like an opera singer. And I play a nylon-string classic guitar. I'm a bass, and a few people have told me that I sound a bit like Gordon Bok, but that's probably because I've stolen a lot of songs from Gordon's records and I can sing then in the same keys he sings them in. I've always thought I probably sound more like Johnny Cash without the southern accent, but then I've inside my own head and I can't really hear me.

So what was I supposed to do, fall on my knees, beg his forgiveness, and cut my throat on the spot?

Tough Nabiscos, Charlie!

Sting does not have the greatest voice in the world, but he does sing pretty well. So he wants to take a shot at playing the lute and singing songs from the Renaissance period. More power to him, say I! He probably sounds more authentic singing these songs than a whole regiment of highly trained counter-tenors. I'm very glad that he's doing this, and I put those who say he shouldn't in the same category as that yo-yo from Berkeley.

Music Nazi.

(mutter mutter)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 03:40 PM

BBC Radio 3 has portions of the Sting concert on The Early Music Show. Program of Oct. 8

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 02:45 PM

I suppose this is a prejudice like any other, but one of the things I remember from my brief stint in a church choir (in a very small church where they had to practically beg people to join the choir) is my annoyance at the choir director telling us we should pronounce vowels in a different way than we did in ordinary speech, e.g. "supplicate" should be "sup-plee-cate." I remember thinking, if my ordinary pronunciation isn't good enough to worship God with, why am I here?

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: RB3
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 02:12 PM

You know, I actually really appreciate the "non-classical" aspect of this, because as has been pointed out, a good number of people who were actually alive at the time and were learning and playing the music were not professionals. So even if there was an "accepted method" of singing/playing it at the time, they weren't likely doing it "right", and that was perfectly fine.
I have been particularly looking for recordings of people singing medieval music without the "classical sound" because when attempting to do reenactment and things of that nature, it makes sense to learn how it actually would have been sung by everyday people rather than professional musicians and church choirs.
I absolutely don't think it's valid to say that he's singing it wrong or he shouldn't sing it because he's not trained that way, because if the only people allowed to sing and play music were the ones who were trained in specific ways, music of many types would simply die out.
I particularly find it an odd opinion on a site which is primarily dedicated to folk music, which, if you apply those rules to it, could never be performed.
-RB3

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 01:48 PM

Yeah, I had a hunch the "For no rational reason whatsoever, I hate Sting!" crowd would be chiming in sooner or later. Oh, well, give it as much attention as it deserves, then move on.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 01:47 PM

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."

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 10:11 AM

nah.. the smug old sod is edging his bets with false modesty..

also..aint he singing these songs
in that the same artifical 'posh' acting voice he puts on to do Noel Coward
or whatever else films/plays he sticks out like a septic sore thumb in..


now Noddy Holder would do justice to Dowland
if we fancy raw bellowing emotion!

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Ian Pittaway
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 08:50 AM

Shimrod, in the interviews Sting has done on Dowland, what has impressed me most is his modesty, his enthusiasm, his saying he is *not* a specialist but a learner in this music. In other words, he is precisely the *opposite* of what you suggest.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 06:01 AM

I suppose if, for most of your life, you've been treated like some sort of god you think that you can do anything - water into wine, Sting?

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 03:30 AM

His name was pronounced dough-land, not dao-land (as shown by his "Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens"), so could conceivably be from the Irish name Dolan. But that in itself could, like many Irish surnames, be derived from a Norman name which existed in parallel in England.

As for Sting, I think he thought he was doing downloads.

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 03:13 AM

Mayve this could be the next direction for Rusby/Keating duets. Not Dowland necessarily: Schubert songs perhaps?

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 11:02 PM

Rod Stewart , Joe Cocker , or Noddy Holder should have a go at it !

Subject: RE: Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:08 PM

I think you're going to find me a bit of a Sting advocate here.

A couple of points to ponder:

Question. Should the label "classical" be applied to these songs? Highly questionable. They do not come from what most musicologists and "classical" musicians regard as the Classical Period, which runs roughly for 1750 to 1850 and includes composers such as Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Following that is what is referred to as the Romantic Period, with such composers as Schubert, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky, along with opera composers such as Verdi, Puccini, Gounod, and Bizet.

Prior to the Classical Period was the Baroque period, with Vivaldi and Handel, early opera composers like Monteverdi (Handel taking a shot at it, too), with J. S. Bach pretty much the giant of the period. The lute and lute-like instruments were giving way to keyboard instruments.

But before that was the Renaissance Period, with Dowland and the Elizabethan era right smack in the middle. A golden age of music for the lute. And before that, the Medieval Period. Gregorian Chants, early church music, and such. And the Troubadours.

So strictly speaking, Dowland was not a composer of "classical music." As far as style of singing is concerned, the higher voices tended to be favored, hence the nasty practice of castrating young males with particularly good singing voices to keep their voices from changing—the castrati—with the nearest thing in sound to that kind of voice these days is the counter-tenor. But not every singer in those days was a tenor, counter-tenor, or castrato. There were basses and baritones just as there are now (incidentally, every male voice can be put into one of these catagories, whether trained or not, that's just the way it is:   Pete Seeger and Burl Ives are tenors, Ed McCurdy was a baritone, Gordon Bok is a bass, Bob Dylan is a . . . uh . . . er—   Well, moving right along, then), so I'm sure these songs were sung by lower voices as well.

We're used to hearing these songs sung by people like tenor Peter Pears or counter-tenor Alfred Deller. I do not believe I have ever heard them sung by any of the lower male voices—baritone or bass. But there is no reason why they couldn't be. There would be the matter of having to transpose the lute accompaniment to other keys more suitable to the ranges of lower voices, and although I assume that what I have seen represented as the accompaniments Dowland wrote for the songs, I'm not sure that they are really what Dowland wrote. What I usually see is a piano version of the lute accompaniment. What I am sure of is that lutenists in those days were quite adept at transposing and improvising, so even if they couldn't sing the songs in the keys as written, they could have changed keys and worked out perfectly acceptable accompaniments in those other keys, just as modern singers of folk songs do.

One thing that really stood out for me in the link to YouTube that MCgrath of Harlow posted above (by the way, thanks, Kevin) is that Sting is obviously enjoying singing the song. He's giving life to it.

Sting does not have a "classical" voice, but I've heard him a fair amount, singing things other than his original foray into rock. And the sucker can sing. I'm really glad he's giving this material a shot and that Deutsche Grammophon has the guts—and quite probably, the foresight—to go along with this.

Don Firth

P. S. And again, Kevin, thanks for posting that last one from YouTube. "La Rossignol" sounded familiar, and lo and behold! I have the music for the duet (cobbled for two guitars) in the back of The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method, Vol. 2. I have a guitar student who's playing her way through the Parkening method now. We're going to have to give this a shot!