Search - Taylor, Bergeron :: Lie Down Poor Heart: Engl Lutesongs & Folk Ballads

The patriarch of modern countertenors, Alfred Deller, once pointed out that many well-known English folk songs are at least as old as the great lute songs of Shakespeare's era, and suggested that the more melancholy examples "one must treat in exactly the same way as one would treat the art songs." For this disc, countertenor Daniel Taylor and lutenist Sylvain Bergeron have taken Deller at his word, and bracketed a set of songs and lute solos by great Elizabethan composers such as John Dowland and Thomas Campion with lyrical, even melancholy, traditional English airs. These fine Canadian musicians treat the folk songs with the respect that Deller called for--and it works: even old chestnuts like "The water is wide" and "Black is the colour of my true love's hair" come across as credible in the company of Dowland's masterful "Sorrow stay." ("The Foggy, Foggy Dew," however, was not the best choice for ending the disc.) Bergeron plays both his solos and the song accompaniments beautifully, with a gentle charisma that holds a listener's attention even through the softest, more slow-moving passages. Taylor, who has made exquisite recordings of Purcell and Dowland, is a bit more problematic: his diction could be clearer; and, particularly in his upper register, there's often a worrisomely tremulous quality to his sound. Has this talented singer's career in Baroque opera begun to fray his voice already? Let's hope not, for he's as intelligent and sensitive a musician here as ever he has been, and in his middle and lower registers he still makes some lovely sounds. Flaws notwithstanding, this is a worthwhile record--both for the fine performances and the reminder that the line between "art music" and "folk music" is thinner than we might think. --Matthew Westphal