John Dowland: Lute Songs

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Editor's info:
Damien Guillon has chosen for his first solo recital disc a refined, subtle and melancholy repertoire, which he has gone on to explore in depth and polish in genuine chamber style with the lutenist Eric Bellocq, an expert in Renaissance music.
"Dowland is heir to the English polyphonic tradition (middle age conception) where words and music coincide not on meaning but through proportions generated by the planets, however he also explores the new modes of expression which were emerging on the continent related to italian renaissance which linked meaning of the words and musical effect, favoring harmony towards polyphony.
His ambivalent attitude seems to have caught the attention of the performers on this recording. Damien Guillon and Éric Bellocq succeed in finding an unprecedented balance between these two facets of the composer's art. Both singer and lutenist dramatise their discourse by means of great variety of dynamics, yet without breaking up the polyphonic lines." Jean-Luc Tamby
Eric Bellocq plays a liuto forte from André Burguete's conception, an instrument which enables the player to develop a larger sound possibilities creating a true dialogue with the singer and a great freedom in improvisation.
Damien Guillon started at an early age as a member of child's choir Brittany, then at the Versailles Baroque Center while studying organ and harpsichord. In 2004, he was admitted to the countertenor Andreas Scholl's class at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis... He was soon spotted by such well-known conductors as Jordi Savall, Vincent Dumestre, Hervé Niquet, Jérôme Correas, Philippe Pierlot, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Christophe Rousset, William Christie, and Philippe Herreweghe.
He has founded his own ensemble, Le Banquet Céleste, with which he has performed at Les Nuits Musicales d'Uzes and the Froville Festival. Their repertoire includes Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, and the cantatas for alto and obbligato organ of J. S. Bach, which will be Damien Guillon's next recording project on Zig-Zag Territoires.