MY DESERTS: JOHN DOWLAND

As part of its Chamber Music Cycle, the Auditorio de Tenerife is offering a concert by the La Chimera consort, and the tenor Zachary Wilder.

My deserts

Nobody can remain unmoved by the Lachrimæ by John Dowland (1563-1626).
Hypnotic and in turn piercing, merciless and simultaneously redemptive: with an almost taxonomical pleasure of classification, Dowland guides us through a gallery of the different natures of crying in which, instead of paintings, we find mirrors, precise portraits of our own individual and unique feeling.
Many theories have been created regarding this enigmatic collection, among them one of the most interesting
suggests that it may be a crypto-liturgy intended to gain the favour of Queen Anne of Denmark; others view the Lachrimæ more as a reflection of the theories on melancholy, which were very fashionable at the time.
Whatever the purpose of this collection, each listener will find the chance to undertake a dense introspective journey in it, guided – but subtly, without constraints – through extremely evocative titles, to which it is possible to give an autobiographical meaning: old tears, forced tears, the tears of a lover...
In the constant oscillation between the profane and the sacred, between nihilism and redemption, dazzling lights sometimes appear, like landscapes only just revealed by a lightning strike in the midst of a storm: moments of sublime joy, almost euphoria, where tears – as announced in the preface – will arise out of happiness.
For our interpretation, we took inspiration from the epigram on the title page of the work: "Aut Furit, aut Lachrimat, quem non Fortuna beavit" ("He whom Fortune has not blessed either rages or weeps”).
Thus, we have devised a retrospective story punctuated by dances and songs: it is the story of a man on his death bed and the way he comes to terms with his Destiny.

Margherita Pupulin