John Dowland's lute music was the most admired in all Europe, and this disc shows why. It possesses the simplicity that is clearly borne of a struggle to state ideas with absolute clarity, using the most efficient means possible--and whether the mood is joyful or lachrymose, one feels a fierce intelligence behind it carefully directing its energies. All this is captured perfectly by Paul O'Dette, who makes his instruments sing in a way which few other lutenists have been able to achieve, and who even manages to sustain some of the longer phrases without ever forcing the length of individual notes. On this disc he plays three instruments with entirely different characters: two are lutes, but strung with different 'sympathetic' strings, and the third is a much brighter-toned orpharion. When your ear has scaled its frame of reference down to appreciate this music fully, such differences in tone colour have an enormous impact. The acoustic of the ...