So following on from Ruby Hughes’ Dowland heavy album Amidst the Shades we have soprano Clara Brunet and lutenist Bor Zuljan with Mr. Dowland’s Dream.  It’s similar in some ways but very different in others.  For a start Zuljan is playing an orpharion; which sounds a bit like a lute with a reverb pedal.  Mostly he’s using a nine course instrument by Bruce Brook, after a 1617 instrument by Francis Palmer, and sometimes he’s playing an electric orpharion of ten courses by César Arias with magnetic pick ups.  Net result, the sound world is rather different from the Hughes album.

The material is also a bit different.  There’s lots of Dowland plus improvisations by Zuljan in a similar vein but at about the half way mark it starts to change gears.  We get pieces by Peter Warlock and William Walton; in their Elizabethan pastiche mode, but then it gets more obviously electronic with Pink Floyd’s Breathe (In the Air) and ‘Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round Midnight.  There’s also a dramatic reading of Lord Byron’s Darkness accompanied by improvisation on the electric instrument.

The performances are really interesting.  Zuljan is very skilled and a good improviser.  Brunet is quite a dramatic singer; certainly more emphatic than Hughes, without being over the top.  Her take on Dowland’s In Darkness let Me Dwell has an almost startling emphasis on the words “jarring, jarring sounds”.  She also has pretty much perfect English diction and can change up her style to something more “poppy:” for the Pink Floyd and Monk tracks.  She’s a pretty good dramatic reader too.

There’s a booklet with a lot of the usual information but instead of the texts of the songs it contains a series of “complementary” texts for the listener to consider.  That’s an interesting idea I haven’t seen before.

The recording was made in March 2025 at Studio Noir in Grandevent, Switzerland and is going to be released on 13th February 2026 as a physical CD and digitally.  The digital options are MP3 plus lossless in 44.1kHz/16bit, 96kHz/24bit and 192kHz/24bit.  Unusually I had access to both the highest res and CD res versions.  They are both good but there are definitely noticeable differences.  For example, listening to a couple of instrumentals; one of the improvisations and Walton’s Bagatelle No.2, the sound is deeper and more immersive on the higher res version.  Darkness is another track that sounds rather different.  Here, Brunet’s voice is both more natural sounding and more dramatic.  This track also has some fancy sound stage engineering going on and it;’s much more solid and defined on the high res version.  It really does make a difference!

All in all, a really interesting album that makes a great pairing with the Hughes album reviewed a few days ago!

Catalogue information: Ricercar Records RIC484