Dame Emma Kirkby and Jakob Lindberg Perform Dowland and Purcell at “Orpheus in England” Venue at Madison Ave. Presbyterian Church

by Sam Juliano

      Few classical or opera afficionados have even heard of British “Queen of Early Music” Emma Kirkby, much less have been aware that she is considered one of the ten greatest sopranos of all-time according to BBC Music magazine.  A former classics student at Oxford and English teacher, Kirkby made her mark as a soloist with little-known renaissance and baroque repetory, and in 2007 was appointed “Dame Commander” of the British Empire in the Queen’s birthday honor’s list.

     Declaring the lute as the biggest inspiration of her career, she has in recent years collaborated in concert with renowned lutist Jakob Lindberg, with whom she appeared on Sunday, Nov. 1 at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in an afternoon “Orpheus in England” venue that featured music by John Dowland and Henry Purcell on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the latter’s death.  The soothing timbre and controlled vibrato of Kirkby’s expressive voice was magnificently complemented by the seductive tone of the lute, which Lindberg strummed with his fingertips on an instrument several hundred years old.  Between Kirkby’s solos, which he underscored with his gentle accompaniment known in the baroque period as basso continuo, Lindberg offered some exquisite solo work of his own, including Dowland’s “Prelude and Fantasia” by a sixteenth-century composer known for his own glorious lute playing.  Unquestionably the most sublimely beautiful moment in this nearly two-hour concert occured right before the intermission when Kirby sent shivers down the spine of those in attendance with a faultlessly modulated, piercing delivery of Dowland’s electrifying In Darkness let me dwell, where the singer lingered over the predominantly one-syllable phrases that comprised one of Western music’s most shattering compositions:

“The ground shall sorrow be; The roof despair, to bar/All cheerful light from me.  The walls of marble black That moistened still shall weep; My music hellish jarring sounds To banish friendly sleep.  Thus wedded to my woes And bedded to my tomb, O, let me living die, till Death do come.  In darkness. (Anon.)  The lyrical beauty and dexterity of the passage is conveyed powerfully by the melancholy progression, especially the unresolved harmony that ends the song, which sounded all the more trenchant as it echoed through the church.

     Dowland can easily be seen as an ancestor of Leonard Cohen, Elliott Smith or Nick Drake in the saturation of melancholy that pervades his work, including the one Ms. Kirkby ushered in at the outset, Come Heavy Sleep, which includes “The image of true death” and “Come, shadow of my end and shape of rest.”  The plaintive serenity and measured accentuation of Kirkby’s voice managed to control the lachrymose essence of Dowland’s lyrics, which otherwise would translate an oppressively moribund tone.

    

     After a 15 minute break, Kirkby and Lindberg returned with the Purcell part of the program.  Born in 1659, nearly four decades after Dowland’s death, Purcell was a far more accessible and popular composer, who stylistically employed a hypnotically repetitive ground bass, which in the first three songs joyfully and triumphantly celebrate courtly love.  The first of these, She loves and she confesses too is an exquisite composition which some may recall was the lyrical basis of Michael Nyman’s “The Disposition of the Lines” from Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract.  Continuing with What a sad fate is mine and Bess of Bedlam, Kirkby was more animated and sung standing up for dramatic effect in delivering in the former a tunefully mournful lament where it is realized that the man must love his lady less or she must love him more.  The latter song is a well-known melancholic piece concerning madness, (made famous by the soprano Barbara Bonney) and Kirkby is at her supreme finest in upping the ante in vocal splendor in conveying the heartfelt lament and deft description.

     Lindberg has his moment in the sun with six short pieces for lute: Cebell, Ritornell’s ‘The Grove,’ A New Irish Measure, A New Ground, Hornpipe, and A New Scottish Measure which earned the sustained applause of all in the ornate gothic structure (erected in 1899) including an appreciative Ms Kirkby.  The singer finished the scheduled program with a searing recitative, Fly Swift, ye hours, which again features a tormented, poet trapped in his love that recalls Purcell’s great work Dido and Aeneas in its sense of despair; and with one of the composer’s most popular and beloved lyrics, Music for a while, adapted by Purcell for Nathaniel Lee and John Dryden’s Oedipus (1678), which extolls the virtues of music as an eternal panacea.

    Repeated clapping summoned both Kirkby and Lindberg to the altar to deliver two encores, including Purcell’s ravishing Evening Hymn, which was followed by thunderous applause.  Music lovers on Sunday were transported by gorgeous voice and sublime instrument to a time when thoughts and emotions was given their most sophisticated expression, and an immediate re-evaluation of Dowland and Purcell is very much in order.

Note:  I attended the Kirkby-Lindberg concert at the Madison Ave. Presbyterian Church on Sunday, Nov. 1 at 3:00 P.M. on a day when Manhattan was almost grid-locked due to the annual NYC marathon.  The program was well worth the inconvinience, and I would like to thank my friend, project director David Carleton of ‘Schwabe and partners’ for the free ticket to this fantastic concert that introduced me to a great voice, perhaps the greatest voice still not known to many.