Diapente, with guest Felix Deak on viola da gamba presented a concert of music by John Dowland and some of his contemporaries at St. Thomas’s Anglican on Tuesday evening. It was a generous selection of pieces arranged for various combinations of the musicians available; Jane Fingler (soprano), Peter Koniers (countertenor), Jonathan Stuchberry (tenor and lute), Alexander Capellazzo (tenor), Martin Gomes (bass) and, of course, Felix Deak (viola da gamba).

There was a lot of fairly familiar Dowland. Peter singing Welcome black night to lute accompaniment and the others as chorus, Martin with Can she excuse accompanied by lute and viola da gamba, Jane plus lute with It was a time when silly Bees could speake and, unsurprisingly, Martin and Alexander plus lute and viola da gamba with Times eldest son, which gave the concert its title.

All were involved in a particularly beautiful account of Unquiet thoughts performed as it would have been in the day; i.e. sung by the musicians grouped around a table-book; which is printed so that each person’s part faces them.

There were some instrumentals too. The concert began with Jonathan playing Lachrimae Pavan and later we got the duet for lute and viola da gamba,; Dowland’s adew for Master Oliver Cromwell. This apparently refers to the uncle of the rather more famous Oliver Cromwell.

There was also music by Dowland’s contemporaries; mostly people he met during his various sojourns at European courts. These included works by Claude le Jeune, Guillaume and Charles Tessier and Alessandro Orologio. There was also a lively madrigal by Luca Marenzio which I particularly enjoyed. Thomas Morley and Thomas Tomkins also got a look in.

This was all very stylishly performed with excellent introductions by Jonathan leading to a very lovely version of the simple and beautiful Now, O now, I needs must part to close out the programme.

This was the first concert of a Dowland mini-festival this week commemorating the 400th anniversary of his death. Today (Wednesday) there’s Evensong with Dowland @ Trinity College Chapel, Thursday there’s music for two lutes at St. James Cathedral and Friday there’s Up Merry Mates; a community concert at St. Clement’s . Finally, on Saturday afternoon there’s Flow, my beers; a Dowland pub afternoon at the Rivoli.