ABOUT
An expanded version of Nick’s album, A Painted Tale, this was an intimate program of love and loss: an epic, pastiche song cycle modeled after Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, told through the lute songs of Dowland, Morley and Purcell. Six Apollo’s Fire musicians on strings and lutes helped to paint the tale.
A Painted Tale is a carefully curated selection of songs by early English masters John Dowland, Thomas Morley, Henry Purcell, and their lesser-known contemporaries John Blow, Alfonso Ferrabosco, and Nicholas Lanier presented within a genuinely dramatic context.
Taking Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin as a model, the songs are ordered so that they tell a story, a so-called ‘Painted Tale’ of a young man who falls in love with a young woman, and is destroyed by the heartbreak that ensues, choosing death as the only possible escape from his torment.
ARTISTS
Nicholas Phan, tenor
with
Apollo’s Fire:
Johanna Novom & Evan Few, violins | Ann Marie Morgan & René Schiffer, violas da gamba & cello | William Simms & Charles Weaver, lutes & guitars
PROGRAM
INTRODUCTION
THOMAS MORLEY: A Painted Tale
HENRY LAWES: Pavan from Royall Consortt, Sett 7 in a minor
THE TALE
BEN JOHNSON: Have you seen but a bright lily grow?
H. LAWES: Saraband & Corant from Royall Consortt, Sett 9 in F major
JOHN BLOW: Fairest Work of Happy Nature
J. BLOW: The Self Banished
NICHOLAS LANIER: Fire, Fire
H. LAWES: Ecco from Royall Consortt, Sett 1 in d minor
J. BLOW: O Turn Not those Fine Eyes Away
HENRY PURCELL: Sweeter than roses
H. PURCELL: She loves and she confesses, too
N. LANIER: No More Shall Meads
- INTERMISSION -
H. LAWES: Pavan from Royall Consortt, Sett 7 in C Major
JOHN DOWLAND: My Thoughts are Winged with Hopes
J. BLOW: Or All the Torments, All the Care
J. DOWLAND: Can She Excuse My Wrongs
H. PURCELL: Not all my torments
ALFONSO FERRABOSCO: So, So Break Off This Last Lamenting Kiss
J. DOWLAND: Now O now I needs must part
J. DOWLAND: Come Heavy Sleep
N. LANIER: Stay, Silly Heart
H. PURCELL: Evening Hymn
“American tenor Nicholas Phan led members of Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire in a stunning live performance of Phan’s English Baroque lute song album, A Painted Tale…The original accompaniments were expanded to include an ensemble of two violins, two lute players (on various instruments), and two violists da gamba, all of whom are Apollo’s Fire regulars…There was not a weak moment in the 90-minute concert.” – Cleveland Classical