Beguiled and Blue: Ayres to the Lute

Soprano Alysha Paterson and mezzo Alice Simmons explore 17th century English song through the work of John Dowland, Giovanni Coprario, Nicholas Lanier and Henry Purcell.

Covering nearly a century of musical evolution, as styles moved from the Renaissance towards the Baroque, the emotions expressed in the songs varied between the torments of unrequited love and the joys and suffering of the bucolic life.

Both Dowland and Coprario died 400 years ago, marking the end of a musical era