Resounding Shores: Songs, Scenes and Dialogues

‘A good voice… [is a] gift… so rare there is not one among a thousand that hath it’, wrote William Byrd in 1588. This didn’t put off singers wishing to try their luck: songbooks became hugely popular around the turn of the 17th century, most notably John Dowland’s groundbreaking First Booke of Songs or Ayres (1597). This was music for performers to make their own. These works have a strongly operatic flavour, blending poetry and music to create i...