A Musicall Banquet 1610 - Nigel Rogers, Anthony Bailes, Jordi Savall

"Furnished with a varietie of delicious Ayres, collected out of the best authors in English, French, Spanish and Italian"

 

Robert Dowland  the son of Dowland "The English Orpheus" was the compiler of this fine anthology dedicated to Sir Robert Sidney, once Lord Chamberlain. In an age of "conceit" It was common enough to select some contrasting idea or image and apply it to an unrelated concept—hence the title "Musicall Banquet" which Robert Dowland charmingly describes as "like a careful confectionary", continuing that "as neere as might be I have fitted my Banquet for all tastes". This was, I think, what Johnson called "discordia concors", a combination by which the most heterogeneous ideas "are yoked by violence together". No matter, the notion is a pleasing one even though I feel that some of this music has a closer affinity with a ploughman's lunch than a banquet…

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