York Early Music Christmas Festival - Event 6

Facets of Time

A dramatic lute-song performance based around one of the Renaissance’s central fascinations … with music by John Dowland, John Daniel, Alfonso Ferrabosco, Thomas Morley and Barry Mills, and words by William Shakespeare

Caught between the scientific and the superstitious, Elizabethan England was deeply fascinated – and often unsettled – by the figure of Old Time. Winged, withered, with scythe in hand, Time was for the Elizabethans a fearful, all-consuming figure, and a potent vehicle for many vital themes. In this programme of words and music, we encounter Time’s many forms: in sleep, in music, and death; as a playful challenge to stubborn lovers and as the ultimate test of true love; its nightmarish distortion at the hands of Macbeth, and its utter defeat by the enduring and unchanging Elizabeth I.

Founded in 2023 at Emma Kirkby’s kitchen table, Dowland’s Foundry is the child of a longstanding club for lute-songsters, Dowland Works. Members involved in this performance are award-winning tenor Daniel Thomson, widely known for his expressive text-based performance, and “Eric Clapton of the lute”, Sam Brown.