Wigmore Hall Live reviews

This beautifully programmed recital will make you want to rush out and buy as many volumes of British songs as you can. It collects – imaginatively, coherently, and to deeply moving effect – 23 songs on the theme of war.

Themes of love and loss pervade this varied sequence of English lute songs both past and present. Theatre ditties by the Virgin Queen’s court lutenist Robert Johnson give way to funeral laments by his contemporary John Danyel epitomising the melancholy spirit of the age, while wistful love songs and lute solos by Dowland contrast with playful militaristic viol pieces by the quirky soldier-composer Tobias Hume.