Search - William [Composer] Byrd, John Dowland, Daniel Taylor :: O Sweet Love: Songs by Dowland & Byrd

Sweet Love hath climbed its mountain peak

Ingrid Heyn | Melbourne, Australia | 05/11/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are some performers whose recordings are instantly slotted into the "must have" section of a collector's mind. The sweet-as-mead voice and high intelligence of Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor make him one of these performers.



Daniel Taylor's voice is like a map that is elegantly and sensitively written, expressive and colourful, its lines and lineaments portraying to the highest degree the geography of music itself. This is no accident - it is an achievement which less intellectually gifted singers can rarely attain (and even then, only by following to the nth degree the careful and minute work of someone who DOES have this particular approach to the music). And when it is a unique interpretation, fresh every time and yet containing similar elements every time, the listener can but sigh with pleasure and bliss, thanking God in His kindness that He has given such a singer to grace the earth.



Dowland's and Byrd's songs are among my favourite in the entire oeuvre. I adore performing them; I adore listening to them. I do demand more when I listen than a pretty tone. Pretty tones are easily come by. I want... I want to hear the poetry of the words in the music. I want to hear each word given a pearl-like placing in the phrase. I want to hear the phrases caress like silk the very texture of the air.



This recording performs exactly that. It is deeply satisfying, very beautiful, and demonstrative of Daniel Taylor's most excellent technique. (I cannot fathom the criticism in one of the previous reviews, in which the reviewer complains of Mr Taylor's technique, speaking of flaws which I have not heard. Either I am peculiarly insensitive to these flaws, or - more likely, since I'm a critical (in the best sense of the word!) listener of music as well as being both a performer and teacher of singing - these flaws exist with as little validity as the oft-vaunted single-footed monsters drawn on Renaissance maps. In other words... they do not exist.)



Beautiful, beautiful singing. Very highly recommended indeed."

Montreal Countertenor Shines

Ingrid Heyn | 04/05/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You have got to...
You need to...
You must...
You will never be the same after you...
FIND THIS DISC.His performance of "Shall I strive with words to move" sums it
all up. TOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL."