Henry Lawes: Ayres La Rêveuse

• Henry Lawes (1595-1662): Ayres
• 1Have you e'er seen the morning sun?01:44
• 2Slide soft you silver floods03:48
• 3Bid me but live, and I will live02:18
• 4Divisions on a ground05:31
• 5Prelude01:50
• 6I rise and grieve06:40
• 7Or you, or I, nature did wrong02:09
• 8Neither sights, nor tears, nor mourning01:37
• 9Almain - Corant 1 - Corant 2 for two lutes04:03
• 10Wither are all her false oaths blown?03:02
• 11I'm sick of love03:05
• 12No more shall meads be deck'd with flowers05:02
• 13Tregian's ground04:49
• 14When thou, poor excommunicate03:11
• 15Sleep soft, you cold clay cinders03:39
• 16Out upon it, I have lov'd01:20
• 17Courant01:30
• 18Cloches de Mr Gaultier01:48
• 19Sweet stay awhile, why do you rise?03:16
• 20O tell me love ! O tell me fate !02:05
• 21Division on John come kiss me now02:04
• 22Wert thou yet fairer than thou art02:35
• 23Why so pale and wan, fond lover?02:08
• Total Runtime01:09:14

Info for Henry Lawes: Ayres

Born in the final years of the reign of Elizabeth I, Henry Lawes lived through the troubled times of 17th century England. Brother of the charismatic but short lived William Lawes (1602-45), he was acknowledged in his day as one of the finest composers for the voice. This recording features a fascinating collection of his Ayres, performed by the French ensemble La Rêveuse. With his extended vocal ranges, expressive melodic formulas, vibrant dissonances and the highly poetic texts, Lawes was a subtle painter of the melancholy of his age, earning a place between John Dowland and Henry Purcell.

“A pleasing mix of songs… Throughout the accompaniments are lively and imaginative, with added and delightful instruments interludes between verses… He (the singer) sings with impressive control and affecting intensity, particularly is Lawes’ setting of John Donne’s ‘Sweet stay awhile’, which is beautifully performed. The instrumental pieces are excellently performed” (Early Music Review)

La Rêveuse:
Jeffrey Thompson, tenor
Florence Bolton, treble and bass viol
Bertrand Cuiller, harpsichord
Benjamin Perrot, lute, theorbo et baroque guitar

La Rêveuse:
Founded by Benjamin Perrot and Florence Bolton, La Rêveuse is an ensemble of solo musicians which aims to bring back to life selected works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that effervescent age so rich in artistic experiments and inventions of all kinds. By favouring an approach founded on eloquence, mastery of colour and a rich continuo sound the musicians of La Rêveuse wish to convey to audiences the rhetorical, spiritual and poetic substance of these repertories.

La Rêveuse has attracted favourable attention with its concerts in France (notably at Les Concerts Parisiens, La Folle Journée de Nantes, Fontevraud Abbey, Pontoise, the Radio-France Montpellier Festival, and Lanvellec), and also appears abroad, at such events as the Cambridge Summer Festival, the Organizatie Oude Muziek season in the Netherlands, La Folle Journée in Japan, the French Cultural Centre in Cairo, and in Switzerland, the USA, and Canada. The group also works regularly in co-production with Benjamin Lazar's company Le Théâtre de l'Incrédule, notably on L'Autre Monde ou Les Estats & Empires de la Lune by Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, which enjoyed great success at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris in April 2008 and has toured widely since then, notably to the Théâtre de Caen and ThéâtreNational Populaire de Villeurbanne.

The ensemble's recordings (Locke/Purcell, K617 2006; Purcell, Mirare 2008; Buxtehude/Reinken, Mirare 2009; Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Mirare 2010, Sébastien de Brossard, Mirare 2011) have all been acclaimed by the French and international press.

In 2011, La Rêveuse created a new stage show, Les Mille et une nuits, a dramatic adaptation by Louise Moaty and Bertrand Cuiller of Antoine Galland's early eighteenth-century translation of The Arabian Nights; the group also provided the musical sequences for a new production of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, directed by Catherine Hiegel with François Morel in the role of M. Jourdain (CADO Orléans / Théâtre de la Porte St Martin Paris / nationwide tour in 2012-13).

In 2012, after a concert tour of the USA and Canada with the tenor Jeffrey Thompson, La Rêveuse premiered its new production, Concerto Luminoso, in collaboration with the visual artist Vincent Vergone (Compagnie Le Praxinoscope), at Noirlac Abbey. This production is already scheduled for many performances in other venues.

La Rêveuse receives support from the DRAC Centre - Ministère de la Culture and the Région Centre. It is a member of FEVIS (Fédération des Ensembles Vocaux et Instrumentaux Spécialisés).

Booklet for Henry Lawes: Ayres