I recently had the urge to listen to "Fine Knacks for Ladies", which I did not realize was a John Dowland song. I guess I figured it was just some historical fraternity song or something.
Then of course I went a' googling for more Dowland (I have always like his music for guitar but was not so familiar with his lyrics.) Naturally I cam upon the Sting collection, which isn't a bad idea but suffers from horrible production. Sting's microphone is very close and there is little room ambiance or timbre. We also get a to hear a detailed symphony of his mouth-noises, saliva, etc.. I hate this time of over-compressed loud contemporary recording. Why can't they just place their $10,000 mic a few feet from the singer and let it sound natural without compression? If only the model of Frank Sinatra and Joao Gilberto was followed - what a fine lesson for audio engineers.
The nice thing for me about Purcell is that unlike so much Opera his lyrics are in English - so they sound more like other songs I might listen to in my daily life. I know what other Operas lyrics mean because I read the translations but its not the same on a musical level as hearing the words of your own language sung. These old songs are not so different from Cure songs of today.
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