John Dowland: songes and ayres in the library Dowland’s Foundry

Performance start times:

1. 11.30am
2. 12.30pm
3. 2.00pm

Duration of performance is about 20 minutes.

Join Dowland’s Foundry in Magdalen College library for a relaxed table performance of some of John Dowland’s finest lute songs. Reading from a unique bound score (all his major works: the three books of Songs or Ayres and Lachrimae, published between 1600 and 1604) once owned by Sir Charles Somerset (1587/8–1665), a Magdalen alumnus, and music collector, this fascinating resource is now housed in Magdalen College library.

Dowland’s Foundry: Gwendolen Martin (soprano), Clemmie Franks (alto), Daniel Thomson (tenor), Timothy Dickinson (bass) , Sam Brown (lute)

A decade ago, a group of interested musicians began to sing through a little-visited corner of music: a treasury of domestic songs to be sung to the lute, printed at the turn of the 17th century. Between their leaves, the members of Dowland Works encountered some of the finest music ever written.

In 2023, five devotees of this collective – all confirmed colleagues on the early music stage – established Dowland’s Foundry: an ensemble whose heartland repertoire is the golden age of Elizabethan song, and named after its most iconic exponent, the lutenist John Dowland.

Entrance is free