12 Oct Notes on the Program: Time Stands Still
Join Les Dèlices for Time Stands Still Nov. 21-22 in Cleveland and Rocky River
Imagine time standing still. It’s what many of us wish for…a break from the news cycle or our busy lives. An opportunity to catch our breath, a moment of silence or peace. An escape from either the inevitable or the unpredictable. For the next hour, we have the opportunity to create that space together – and we’ve chosen a shatteringly beautiful and deeply personal selection of songs and instrumental music from seventeenth-century England expressly designed to stop time.
The winding, chromatic ground bass of Henry Purcell’s Music for a While is meant to cast a spell that’s continued by Thomas Preston’s mesmerizing variations over just three notes (A-E-D) Uppon La Mi Re. Elsewhere in the program, instrumental fantasies that indulge in repetition and variation like Elway Bevin’s Browning and the Ground by Mr. Eccles are like gazing into a kaleidoscope.
In large part, however, tonight’s program is a tribute to the legacy of John Dowland (1563-1626), the greatest songwriter and lute player from Shakespeare’s time and “the most internationally renowned English musician of his age.” 2026 marks the 400th anniversary of Dowland’s death. In his day, he was compared with Orpheus (the master musician of ancient myth) and his spectacular achievements on the lute were second-to-none.
Dowland’s instrument, the six-course Renaissance lute, was the most important and popular secular instrument of the 16th and 17th centuries. Relatively small and lightweight, it could be brought anywhere (it was heard in homes, in private chambers at court, or in the theater). It was also relatively accessible such that playing the lute became a vital part of a humanist education for nobles and a growing bourgeoisie. One could also play almost any music on it – whether intabulations of vocal polyphony (like La mia Barbara), intricate dance pieces (such as Can she excuse my wrongs/Earl of Essex Galliard), or accompanying oneself or a singer in a song.
Despite being the most important composer of English lute song, Dowland spent relatively little of his career in England. Instead, following early travels through France, Italy, and Germany, he spent seven years in the employ of the King of Denmark. In fact, his work in the retinue of political ambassadors has led to speculation that Dowland was a spy providing foreign intelligence to Queen Elizabeth I. However, although Dowland made many musical tributes to Elizabeth – including the song Time Stands Still and its remarks on the Queen’s ageless beauty “All other things shall change, but she remains the same”, he never gained a royal appointment.
Dowland’s music began to appear in various manuscript collections in the 1580s and it was getting printed (often without Dowland’s input or permission) from the mid 1590s. Finally, Dowland issued his First Booke of Songes or Ayres in 1597. It was reprinted at least three times in the next decade, becoming “the most successful secular musical anthology of its time.” Dowland’s initial song collection was groundbreaking in several ways: it was the first book in England printed in so-called “table book” format where individual parts were oriented to enable multiple performers to read from the same book around a table. It also represented “the first full collection of lute songs printed in England…including the singer’s part with both notation and lyrics placed directly above lute tablature.” A keen businessman as well as an artist, Dowland even optimized his music for versatility and utility so that songs could be performed “with lute accompaniment, as multi-part vocals in the manner of the popular English madrigal, as mixed-consort pieces with one or more voices or instruments, or some combination thereof.”
But what Dowland is probably most famous for is his vibe. By the late 1590s, Dowland was already well known for his famous “Lachrimae,” a pavan (a slow dance form) for solo lute whose descending four-note melody depicts weeping. Together with subsequent work cemented, Lachrimae secured his place in a fashionable “cult of melancholy.” Dowland even adopted Semper Dowland, semper dolens as a personal motto (Always Dowland, ever doleful), and composed a pavan with this title for inclusion in his 1604 instrumental collection Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares. As we hear in tonight’s program, Dowland even fitted words to Lachrimae, which reappeared in his Second Book of Songs (1600) as Flow my tears.
“Perhaps the most disconsolate and evocative” of Dowland’s songs (according to scholar K. Dawn Grapes), is In darkness let me dwell, which offers “an exquisite climax to the melancholic persona the composer spent years cultivating.” Paired with Tobias Hume’s Deth for solo viola da gamba, Dowland’s In darkness embodies catharsis and ”the power of music to cleanse the soul.”
From this point in the program we turn towards the light and to personal resolutions. Thomas Morley’s instrumental fantasia La Tortorella delights in conversation between recorder and viol before Dowland’s The lowest trees have tops (on a poem by Edward Dyer) reminds us that every living thing has value, that love belongs to all of us, and that quiet faith is the firmest foundation. This sentiment is echoed in John Blow’s solo song from 80 years later Peaceful is he, where one “whose heart and actions all are pure” can meet life’s headwinds, storms, and looming death with quiet serenity. Finally, we are uplifted in spiritual transcendence by Henry Purcell’s beloved Evening Hymn.
EVENT DETAILS:
Time Stands Still: Contemplative lute songs by John Dowland and Henry Purcell
Live performances:
Saturday, November 21, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Trinity Cathedral
2230 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH
Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 4:00 pm
West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
20401 Hilliard Blvd, Rocky River, OH