Crossover alert: Sting does Dowland.

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,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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.