Mr Dowland’s Fortune – Michele Carreca

Dowland repeatedly expressed his desire to have his instrumental music properly printed, together with a treatise on the right procedure for playing the lute, but he then let the matter drop, just when the position he had attained as lutenist of the royal court could have given him the peace of mind for drawing up such a work. On the basis of his biography and his rather uneven career it is not entirely clear what obstacles may have prevented him fromcompleting this project. […]

We may never know exactly why we have been unable to enjoy this treasure. In the end perhaps it was Fortune (the Goddess of Luck) who decided that such a significant quantity of Dowland’s music would be handed down to us.[from the liner notes by Michele Carreca].

For his first solo album, the lutenist Michele Carreca proposes a pondered choice of the most beautiful pieces for solo lute by John Dowland, whose compositions are universally considered an unquestionable milestone for lute repertoire.