SONGS BY HENRY & WILLIAM

LAWES
ROBIN BLAZE . ELIZABETH KENNY
with REBECCA OUTRAM
ROBERT MACDONALD
FRANCES KELLY
WILLIAM CARTER
 CONTENTS

TRACK LISTING
page 3

ENGLISH
page 4

Sung texts and translation
page 9

2
 1 WILLIAM LAWES (1602–1645) Gather your rosebuds while you may . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RO, RB, RM [1'30]
2 HENRY LAWES (1596–1662) A Tale out of Anacreon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [3'51]
3 HENRY LAWES Oh, that joy so soon should waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK lute [1'41]
4 HENRY LAWES Sweet, stay awhile; why do you rise? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK lute [3'01]
5 RENÉ SAMAN (fl1610–1631) Monsieur Saman his Coranto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK lute [1'31]
6 HENRY LAWES Amarillis, by a spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [2'23]
7 WILLIAM LAWES Oh, let me still and silent lie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [3'28]
8 WILLIAM LAWES Oh, my Clarissa, thou cruel fair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo, WC guitar, FK [5'10]
9 HENRY LAWES From the heav’ns now I fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [2'07]
bl WILLIAM LAWES Corant from The Royall Consort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK lute, WC theorbo, FK [1'59]
bm HENRY LAWES Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv’st unseen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RO, EK theorbo [2'00]
bn WILLIAM LAWES Country Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK lute [0'55]
bo HENRY LAWES Oh sweet woods, the delight of solitariness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [2'25]
bp HENRY LAWES Tavola: In quel gelato core una voce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [2'31]
bq HENRY LAWES Loves Sweet Repose: Amidst the myrtles as I walk . . . . RB, EK theorbo, WC lute, FK [5'28]
br HENRY LAWES No Reprieve: Now, now Lucasia, now make haste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [3'45]
bs CUTHBERT HELY (fl1620–1640) Fantasia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK lute [4'06]
bt HENRY LAWES Slide soft, you silver floods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [2'36]
bu CUTHBERT HELY Saraband . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK lute [1'03]
cl HENRY LAWES When shall I see my captive heart? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK lute [3'31]
cm WILLIAM LAWES Alman for two lutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK, WC lutes [1'57]
cn WILLIAM LAWES Corant for two lutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK, WC lutes [1'11]
co WILLIAM LAWES A Dreame: I laid me down upon a pillow soft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RM, EK theorbo [1'45]
cp WILLIAM LAWES Corant for two lutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EK, WC lutes [1'13]
cq HENRY LAWES The Angler’s Song: Man’s life is but vain, for ’tis subject to pain . . RB, EK theorbo [1'07]
cr WILLIAM LAWES When man for sin thy judgment feels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RB, EK theorbo [4'57]
cs HENRY LAWES A Pastoral Elegie: Cease you jolly shepherds . . . . RO, RB, RM, EK theorbo, WC lute, FK [3'37]

ROBIN BLAZE countertenor

REBECCA OUTRAM soprano ROBERT MACDONALD bass
WILLIAM CARTER lute, guitar, theorbo FRANCES KELLY double harp

3 ELIZABETH KENNY lute, theorbo

 S
IR NICHOLAS LE STRANGE’s jest-book recounts a
tale of John Wilson and Henry and William Lawes,
who ‘were at a Taverne one night: Wilson being in
[the] worst state of the three, swore he would quarrel with
the next Man he mett … out flew their swords, but the
Lawes parted them presently.’
The Lawes had a lot of puns made on their name while
they were alive, and even after William was tragically killed
by men whose Wills were Laws. We would like to think
there is a bit of truth in the tavern joke, though, because
it fits well with their reputations not only for musical
excellence but also for being peace-makers and friends
who knew how to have a good time. They were ‘Brothers,
in Blood, in Science, and Affection’ (Aurelian Towns-
hend), each remarkably successful in his own right yet
collectively a model of musical collaboration.
This did not do much for their posthumous reputation,
since history has favoured the model of a great artist as
someone who is isolated and tortured by genius. William
Lawes’ intense instrumental works redeemed him, but his
songs have often been seen as superficial or too dominated
by the poetry. As Murray Lefkowitz wrote about William:
‘Ever anxious to please his patron the Caroline musician
did not hesitate to subject purely musical consideration
to the new literary ideals … only in the larger forms of
instrumental music could the composer give free reign to
his creative imagination.’ And Charles Burney described
Henry’s music as ‘insipid for its simplicity’.
The better-known poets of the time were keen to
encourage the view that simple music was best:
For as a window thick with paint
Lets in a light but dim and faint,
So others with Division hide
The light of sense, the Poets Pride,
But you alone may truly boast
That not a syllable is lost […]
EDMUND WALLER (1606–1687): from To Mr Henry Lawes (1635)
4
Milton’s famous sonnet of praise makes clear that the
function of music is not to get in the way, and can only
borrow a wing from poetry:
Harry, whose tuneful and well-measur’d song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas ears, committing short and long,
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng
With praise enough for envy to look wan;
To after age thou shalt be writ the man
That with smooth Aire could humour best our tongue.
Thou honourest Verse, and Verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the Priest of Phebus Quire […]
JOHN MILTON (1608–1674): from Sonnet XIII
Henry Lawes himself said laconically: ‘Yet the Way of
composition (which is to shape words to the notes and
Sense) is not hit by too many’ (Preface to the Second
Book, 1655).
But in the collaborative world of Caroline theatre,
masque and courtly performance, this tells only half
the story. Smaller literary fish were only too glad to have
their poetry turned into a courtly event through musical
performance.
Francis Finch pointed out that what Lawes was doing
was not necessarily that simple: ‘I have not sought the
Rules by which yee try | When a Chord’s broke, or holds
in Harmony.’ Will Barker gave Milton’s wings back to the
music: ‘Your Art such motion to our Verses brings | We
can but give them Feet, you give them wings.’ Thomas
Norton put it even more succinctly: ‘Thy notes beget the
Words, not words thy Notes.’
The exception, the distinguished poet who relished not
just the ideal of music but the thing itself, seems to be
Robert Herrick, who described Lawes’ playing as akin to
the ‘rare Gotire’ (lute virtuoso Jaques Gaultier), and his
singing as the ‘rare Laniere, or curious Wilson’. In
 performance Lawes added French lute panache, Italian
virtuosity and adventurous harmonic improvisation. The
musicians realized this could radically change and give
wings to the most straightforward of musical settings. As
Wilson said: ‘Thy weaving far excels the Rhyme.’ And the
singer and lutenist Charles Colman elaborated:
For though at the first hearing all admire,
Yet when into the severalls men inquire,
(Which make up the composure), they are lost …
How greedily do the best judgements throng
To hear the Repetition of thy song?
Which still they beg in vain; for when re-sung
So much new Art and Excellence is flung
Round thy Admirers (unobserv’d before)
As makes the newly ravish’d more.
It is worth labouring this difference of opinion because
the better-known poets have carried the day, to the extent
that the songs of both Henry and William Lawes are more
written about as declamatory experiments than actually
heard as music. Commercially the songs published by
Playford after the Civil War were a great success: skilled
practitioners could customize their own interpretations,
while amateurs like Samuel Pepys employed their lute
teachers to ‘set the base to the Theorbo’—to put in into
tablature. Playford complained that all the arts were at a
low ebb after the Civil War, and he highlighted a serious
skills shortage, particularly in the area of singing in
the Italian manner. The tune-and-bass format of the
songbooks, produced precisely so that a new generation of
musical consumers would not be left behind, has been
taken as the aesthetic goal of an entire generation of
songwriters.
Henry Lawes referred to his ‘profession’ not as
composing or performing but as teaching (Ayres and
Dialogues, 1653), specifically to aristocratic households
like the Egertons. He gained a place in the Chapel Royal in
5
1626, and became a member of the Lutes and Voices in
1631, where he was joined by his brother in 1635.
Playford’s introduction to the translation of Giulio
Caccini’s Nuovo Musiche (published in the editions of
A brief Introduction between 1664 and 1694) pointed
out that teachers like Lawes had been singing and teach-
ing the ‘Italian Way’ for some forty years. Many of the
manuscripts that contain free and florid ornamentation
were used in teaching those talented or with time enough
to imitate professional practice. The Oxford version of
Amarillis, by a spring 6 has the bass line rewritten to
accommodate extra vocal flourishes—division hiding the
long and short syllables but making the poetic feeling
more expressive.
Performers in masques and on stage had been selec-
ted for the quality of their voices since Jacobean times.
Lawes remarked that some ‘Young Gentleman heard
some songs I had set to Italian Words (publickly sung by
excellent voices) concluded those songs were begotten in
Italy, and said (too loude) they would faine hear such
songes to be made by an Englishman’ (Preface to the
Second Book, 1655). Public singing was different to pri-
vate, then, and it was in a composer’s interests to foster it.
The assumption that English musicians were not up to
the expressive techniques of the Italians irked Lawes into
setting the contents table of ‘old Italian songs’ (most of
the index to Antonio Cifra’s Scherzi ed Arie, 1614) to
disconcertingly passionate music (as in In quel gelato
core bp ). The joke might have been on the ‘young gentle-
men’ but also on later historians who enthused about the
word-inspired innovations of the Italian seconda praticca
while diagnosing it as a failure of nerve when English
musicians did the same.
William Lawes attracted the notice of the influential
Bulstrode Whitelocke with his theatre songs, and along
with Simon Ives was commissioned to write the music for

HENRY LAWES a portrait by an unknown artist, c1642
The Triumph of Peace in 1634. From then on his position
at the nerve centre of Caroline music was assured, until
his untimely death at the Siege of Chester in 1645.
Henry’s career was longer, and with his characteristic
resourcefulness he initiated what, other than the regular
performances given by the City Waits, should be classed
as the first professional concert series in England, at
his house. The series is also remarkable for introducing
female singers such as Mary Knight, pioneering the
training of female voices that would be essential to the
Restoration stage. Concerts were an opportunity to display
professional skills to an influencial audience of amateurs
who might buy the songbooks and become connoisseurs.
Some of the songs that appear early in Henry Lawes’
autograph manuscript, probably from the 1620s, use texts
from the previous generation. Sweet, stay awhile; why do
6
you rise? 4 (attributed to Donne) and Oh sweet woods,
the delight of solitariness bo (Sidney) were famous for
their texts and their musical settings by Dowland, and it
is hard not to see Lawes setting out a different musical
stall while acknowledging their influence. The long slow
notes, use of rests and dissonance of Oh sweet woods are
almost textbook examples of monodic setting as set out
by Caccini. Henry and William used playsongs as inde-
pendent pieces that may or may not have their meaning
determined by their place in the dramatic action. This
meant that a song like Oh, that joy so soon should
waste 3 , whose extravagant lyrics were a source of
irony for Ben Jonson (from Cynthia’s Revels, 1599),
just seemed like a good opportunity for expressive
languishing. The music has a sincerity all its own, as it
does in the beautiful Slide soft, you silver floods bt .
Later ‘declamatory’ songs have a more complex
relationship to Italian recitative. Henry’s assertion of
Englishness may have rendered the text more intelligible,
but he was equally concerned to make English a suitable
vehicle for sheer vocal sound. Lawes often followed
Caccini’s advice as to which vowel sounds are good for
long notes to show the singer’s command of the messa
di voce, esclamatione, trillo or division-type ornaments.
Despite his ‘just note and accent’ reputation he didn’t
always set short syllables to short notes and vice versa. He
noted the challenge of English monosyllables, which the
openings of A Tale out of Anacreon 2 and Now, now
Lucasia, now make haste br see him rising to in com-
pletely different ways—the moody film noir atmospherics
of the former in contrast to the energy of the latter.
In endings—(‘Oh, ’tis! … my heart is broke’, for
instance)—both Laweses use musical means to ‘smooth’
the monosyllables so a powerful sung line can be
generated, in order to express extremes of feeling. When
man for sin thy judgment feels cr (unattributed to
 William Lawes in BL Add MS 10337 but so characteristic
that it can surely be added to his list of works) brings out
the agony of an individual being torn apart under God’s
gaze that can’t for us be separated from the image of
seventeenth-century England doing the same thing.
Mid-century vocal manuscripts have both French-style
and Italian-style ornamentation: Italian theorboes were
heard played by the likes of Angelo Notari, but French-
style lutes and ‘English’ theorboes played according
to the French fashion in plucked instruments were also
common. A song like When shall I see my captive
heart? cl is neither French nor Italian in the plain ver-
sion, but comes out with a French accent if the ‘double’
version in the Lady Ann Blount’s Songbook is sung. The
flirty Fête champêtre atmosphere of A Dreame co needs
those slow French trills.
WILLIAM LAWES a portrait by an unknown artist,
second quarter of the seventeenth century
7
As lute players the Laweses were not so much in-
fluenced by French music as steeped in its sound and
rhythmic inflection. This has often disappointed scholars
who have noted the preponderance of light triple-time
metres with dismay. And Henry Lawes actually wrote more
light ayres as time went on. Not light enough for the
public: Playford was nervous enough about shifting old
Lawes stock in 1669 to bind up a large back catalogue with
the Treasury of Music. The mismatch between relentlessly
duple-time English lyrics like Amidst the myrtles as I
walk bq and their sashaying French triple rhythm sets up
a tension between the text and the music that requires
something of the performers. English musicians had ab-
sorbed a considerable range of rhythmic effects, degrees
of inégalité, adding the odd hemiola here and there. The
tune for Oh, my Clarissa, thou cruel fair 8 appeared as
a popular Sarabande in Playford’s Court Ayres (1655) and
Amidst the myrtles appeared in A Treasury of Musicke
(1669) surrounded by other Sarabande songs whose
tunes we’ve used as instrumental interludes. A good
tune was still independent of its text in this generation.
Herrick’s Cavalier signature tune, Gather your rosebuds
while you may 1 , exists in duple and triple time, for solo
voice and for trio, changing as often as it was written or
printed. Izaak Walton helpfully provided a properly useful
word with an unstressed ending just like in French—
‘angle’—but with a cheery English moral: if life gets too
much, there’s always fishing (The Angler’s Song: Man’s
life is but vain, for ’tis subject to pain cq ).
The Benigne de Bacilly/Michel Lambert method
of singing and writing doubles reflected in mid-century
sources may shed a little light on the kind of voice type
that suited solo song. Henry Lawes was described as a
countertenor in The Triumph of Peace, and though this
probably means a high tenor with some head register,
‘feigned’ voices were nonetheless known not only in
 cathedral choirs. Male soprano Maturin Mari was also
part of the Triumph’s line-up. Caccini and his translator
disapproved of them, but Bacilly (1668) provided the
equivalent of a Gallic shrug: ‘Those who have natural
voices scorn the falsetto as being too artificial and shrill,
while on the other hand falsetto singers are usually of the
opinion that the beauty of the song is more evident when
performed by the shimmering brilliance of their vocal
type.’ Each to his own.
Lawes’ theorbo, by all accounts a magnificent instru-
ment decorated with the Bridgewater coat of arms, was
destroyed by the Oxford University Music School in a
nineteenth-century clearout, so its actual sound is a
mystery. We’ve used an Italian-style instrument and an
‘English’ theorbo tuned, as Thomas Mace describes, like
an ‘Old English lute’, to a design illustrated on the front
of Lawes’ 1658 book. In the spirit of Charles I’s Lutes
and Voices, we’ve also used lute, harp and guitar as
performance options. (One unfigured bass in the Henry
Lawes autograph is marked ‘for the gittar’.)
Of the Lawes brothers the only one to leave any solo
music was William, who according to his brother com-
posed for each instrument ‘so aptly, as if he had only
studied that’ (Choice Psalms, 1648), wrote three attrac-
tive duets in a tuning after René Meseangeau— cm cn and
cp . Flexibility of format characterized not only Lawes’
masque music but also William Lawes’ The Royall
Consort, a movement from which is here arranged for
lute, theorbo and harp (Corant bl ) and a solo version of
his Country Dance bn (which appears as the Morris to
the D major Consort), taken from Playford’s Courtly
Masquing Ayres, 1662.
Cuthbert Hely was the little-known lute teacher and
secretary to Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose
great manuscript collection of lute music contains both
8
Hely’s tortured, interior music and courtly dances like
Monsieur Saman his Coranto 5 . Hely described hearing
one of the Egerton daughters sing at an evening in Ludlow,
just down the road from Herbert’s Castle-Island in
Pembrokeshire. This was probably Henry Lawes’ protégée
Lady Alice, who sang Sweet Echo bm as the Lady in the
masque now known as Comus. Henry Lawes worked with
John Milton to produce this entertainment in 1634. He
rearranged lines which Milton had intended for the end
of the piece to give himself a glamorous and dramatic
entrance: From the heav’ns now I fly 9 . At this time in
English history brooding darkness and extravagant politi-
cal display were two sides of the same coin, as both Lawes
and Milton appreciated.
William Lawes’ death defending the King at the siege
of Chester in 1645 sent shock waves through the Royalist
circle and symbolized the waste of all that was lost in the
Civil War. Henry drew attention to the many tributes paid
to his brother: ‘Yet I (oblig’d before all other) cannot but
bewaile his losse, and shall celebrate his memory to my
last houre’ (Choice Psalms, 1648).
And he did, mentioning almost at the end of his last
will and testament the ‘Compositions of my deare brother
William Lawes’ as a treasured possession.
His A pastoral elegy: Cease you jolly shepherds cs is
perhaps the best refutation of the idea that Henry Lawes
was only as good as his texts. As a poem it is heartfelt but
easily forgotten. As music it says it all.
ELIZABETH KENNY © 2007
Special thanks to Gordon Callon for musicological advice and
sensitive ears, and to Rebecca Outram, Robert Macdonald,
Frances Kelly and William Carter for bringing the ideal of
cooperative collaboration to life. We are also grateful to the Arts
and Humanities Research Council for their support.
 WILLIAM LAWES (1602–1645)
1 Gather your rosebuds while you may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And that same flow’r that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heav’n, the sun,
The higher he is a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best that is the first,
While youth and blood are warmer:
Expect not then the last and worst,
Time still succeeds the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while you may go marry:
For having once but lost your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
ROBERT HERRICK (1591–1674)
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
A Tale out of Anacreon
2 At dead low ebb of night, when none
But Great Charles Wayn was driven on;
When mortals strict cessation keep,
To re-recruit themselves with sleep;
’Twas then a boy knock’d at my gate.
Who’s there, said I, that calls so late?
O let me in! he soon reply’d,
I am a childe; and then he cry’d,
I wander without guide or light,
Lost in this wet, blind, moonless night.
In pity then I rose, and straight
Unbarr’d my dore, and sprang a light:
Behold, it was a lovely boy,
A sweeter sight ne’re bless’d mine eye:
I view’d him round, and saw strange things;
A bow, a quiver, and two wings;
I led him to the fire, and then
I dry’d and, chaf’d his hands with mine:
9
I gently press’d his tresses, curles,
Which new faln rain had hung with perls.
At last, when warm’d, the Yonker said,
Alas my bow! I am afraid
The string is wet; pray (Sir) let’s try;
Let’s try my bow.
Do, do, said I.
He bent it; shot so quick and smart,
As though my liver reach’d my heart.
Then in a trice he took his flight,
And laughing said; my bow is right,
It is O ’tis! For as he spoke,
’Twas not his bow, but my heart is broke.
ANONYMOUS
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
3 Oh, that joy so soon should waste,
That so sweet a bliss
As a kiss
Might not for ever last.
So sugared, so melting, so soft, so delicious:
The dew that lies on roses
When the morn herself discloses
Was not so precious!
Oh, rather than I would it smother,
Were I to taste such another,
It would be my wishing
That I might die kissing.
BEN JONSON (1572/3–1637): from Cynthia’s Revels
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
4 Sweet, stay awhile; why do you rise?
The light you see comes from your eyes.
The day breaks not; it is my heart,
To think that I from you must part.
Oh stay, or else my joys must die
And perish in their infancy.
 Oh, let me die on this fair breast,
Far sweeter than the phoenix’ nest.
Love, raise desire with thy sweet charms
Within the centre of her arms,
And let those blissful kisses cherish
My infant joys which else would perish.
JOHN DONNE (1572–1631)
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
6 Amarillis, by a spring,
Soft and soul-melting, murmuring slept,
Unto whom a redbreast fled,
Who simply thinking she was dead,
To bury her brought spearmint fine
And leaves of sweetest eglantine.
Where placing them, he saw her stir,
At which, amaz’d, he flew from her
Unto a myrtle growing by,
Where marking from her little eye
A thousand flames of love to fly,
Poor Robin-redbreast then drew nigh,
And seeing her not dead but all disleaved,
He chirped for joy to see himself deceived.
ROBERT HERRICK (1591–1674)
WILLIAM LAWES (1602–1645)
7 Oh, let me still and silent lie,
Without a sigh, a tear or groan.
I will not have her know
That I do slight my sorrow so,
For they who moan
And sigh and weep do try
If they can give their grief a remedy.
May she not justly me repay
With scorn for an affront so high
If I do seek a cure,
And not glory to endure
Her cruelty.
Who would not shackles lay
On captives that would run away?
10
The very course her pride requires
When thy obediant heart hath run
And the dispatching rage
Of love hath done the act of age,
Thy youth undone,
Making thy secret fires
Consume all fuel but desires.
If this exchange thou not repent,
As great a miracle th’art grown
As she, though she again
Should love, aye me (alas); but when
Her heart of stone
Resolves not to relent,
Dies, an’t shall be thy monument.
ANONYMOUS
WILLIAM LAWES (1602–1645)
8 Oh, my Clarissa, thou cruel fair,
Bright as the morning and soft as the air,
Fresher than flowers in May,
Yet, far more sweet than they:
Love is the subject of my prayer.
When first I saw thee, I felt a flame
Which from thine eyes like lightning came.
Sure it was Cupid’s dart;
It pierced so my heart.
Oh, could thy breast once feel the same!
A wound so powerful would urge thy soul,
Spite of a froward heart, coyness control
And make thy love as fixed
As is the heart thou prick’st,
Forcing thee with me to condole.
Let not such fortune my love betide
But let your rocky breast be mollified.
Send me not to my grave
Unpitied like a slave,
How can love such usage abide?
 Sympathize with me awhile in grief;
This passion quickly will find out relief.
Cupid will from his bowers
Warm those chill hearts of ours
And make his power rule there in chief.
Then would the God of Love equal be,
Giving me ease as by wounding thee.
Then would you never scorn
When like to me you burn,
At least not prove unkind to me.
ANONYMOUS
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
9 From the heav’ns now I fly
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky.
There I suck the liquid air,
All amidst the garden fair
Of Hesperus and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the od’rous banks that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can show,
Beds of hyacinths and roses
Where many a cherub soft reposes.
JOHN MILTON (1608–1674)
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
bm Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv’st unseen
Within thy airy shell,
By slow Meander’s margent green,
And in thy violet embroidered vale
Where the lovelorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well,
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?
11
Oh, if thou have
Hid them in some flowery cave,
Tell me but where,
Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere.
So may’st thou be translated to the skies
And hold a counterpoint to all heaven’s harmonies.
ANONYMOUS
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
bo Oh sweet woods, the delight of solitariness,
Oh, how I like your solitariness.
From fame’s desire, from love’s delight retired,
In those still groves a hermit’s life I led,
And those false pleasures which I once admired,
With sad remembrance of my fall, I dread.
To birds, to trees, to earth impart I this,
For she less secret and as senseless is.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554–1586) / ANONYMOUS
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
Tavola
bp In quel gelato core una voce;
piagne Madonna segl’occhi vostri a due voci;
O sempre e quando, tudi salvar mi cirche,
certe è scorno, misera non creda, ohi me
de lumi già, macche squallido dalli pallida labra;
Così mia vita, a tre voci.
Index
In that icy heart one voice;
My Lady weeps if you eyes for two voices;
O always and when, you save me
from some scorn, O wretch do not imagine … Ah! me,
that your eyes, with what pale lips that wan lover,
And so my life, for three voices.
ANTONIO CIFRA (c1584–1629): from Scherzi et Arie (1614)
English translation © Peggy Forsyth
 HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
Loves Sweet Repose
bq Amidst the myrtles as I walk,
Love and my sighs thus enter talk.
Tell me, said I in deep distress,
Where I may find my shepherdess.
Then fool, said Love, know’st thou not this?
In every thing that’s good she is.
In yonder tulip go and seek,
There thou shalt find her lip and cheek.
In that enameled fancy by,
There thou shalt find her curious eye.
In bloom of peach, in rose’s bud,
There wave the streams of her blood.
’Tis true, said I, and thereupon
And went and pluckt them one by one
To make a part a union,
But on a sudden all was gone.
At which I stopped. Said Love, These be,
Fond man, resemblances of thee,
For as these flowers thy joy must die
Even in the turning of an eye.
And all thy hopes of her must wither
As do those flowers when knit together.
ROBERT HERRICK (1591–1674)
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
No Reprieve
br Now, now Lucasia, now make haste,
If thou wilt see how strong thou art,
There needs but one frown more to waste
The whole remainder of my heart.
Alas! undone to Fate, I bow my head
Ready to die, now die, and now am dead.
12
You look to have an age of trial
Ere you a lover will repay;
But my stare brooks no more denial,
I cannot this one minute stay.
Alas! undone to Fate, I bow my head
Ready to die, now die, and now am dead.
Look in my wound and see how cold,
How pale and gasping my soul lies,
Which nature strives in vain to hold;
Whilst wing’d with sighs away it flies.
Alas! undone to Fate, I bow my head
Ready to die, now die, and now am dead.
See already Charon’s boat,
Who grimly asks, ‘Why all this stay?’
Hark how the fatal sisters shout!
And now they call ‘Away! Away!’
Alas! undone to Fate, I bow my head
Ready to die, now die, and now am dead.
JOHN BERKENHEAD (1617–1679)
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
bt Slide soft, you silver floods
And every spring
Within these shady woods.
Let no bird sing,
Nor from this grove a turtle dove
Be seen to couple with his love,
But silence on each dale and mountain dwell
Whilst that I weeping bid my love farewell.
You nymphs of Thetis’ train,
You mermaids fair
That on the shores do plain,
Your sea-green hair
As you in trammels knit your locks,
Weep ye and force the craggy rocks
In heavy murmurs through broad shores to tell
How that I weeping bid my love farewell.
WILLIAM BROWNE (?1590–1645)
 HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
cl When shall I see my captive heart
That lies in Cloris’ breast?
Or when will love again restore
Those joys I once possessed?
Yet ’tis a blessing, I confess
(When fate is so severe),
Not to be barred of future hopes
To mitigate our fears.
The tyrant Love would be deposed
And from his empire thrown
Were not his subjects fooled with hope
That mercy would be shown.
Then, captive heart, contented lie
And banish all despair
Since there is hope that she may be
As kind as she is fair.
HENRY HUGHES (c1602–c1652)
WILLIAM LAWES (1602–1645)
A Dreame
co I laid me down upon a pillow soft,
And dream’d I clypt and kissed my mistress oft:
She cry’d, ‘Fie fie, away, you are too bold’.
I pray’d her be content: though she were cold,
My veins did burn with flames of hot desire,
And must not leave till she had quenched my fire.
‘Well, since’ (said she) ‘I may not from you fly,
Do what you please, I give you liberty.’
With that I wak’d, but found I was deceiv’d,
For which I stormed, like one of sense bereav’d.
ANONYMOUS
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
The Angler’s Song
cq Man’s life is but vain, for ’tis subject to pain
And sorrow, and short as a bubble;
’Tis a hodg podg of business, and money and care,
And care and money, and trouble.
13
But we’ll take no care when the weather proves fair,
Nor will we vex now though it rain;
We’ll banish all Sorrow, and sing till tomorrow,
And angle and angle again.
IZAAK WALTON (1593–1683)
WILLIAM LAWES (1602–1645)
cr When man for sin thy judgment feels,
Just as a moth
Consumes a cloth,
His beauty fades; in strength he reels.
Man is all vanity and full of ills.
Oh, spare me, Lord, awhile that I
May gain some strength before I die.
But, Lord, unto my prayers draw near,
Lend gracious ears
And see my tears.
On earth I am a sojourner
As all my fathers were.
Oh, spare me, Lord, awhile that I
May gain some strength before I die.
ANONYMOUS
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
A Pastoral Elegie to the memory of my deare Brother
cs Cease you jolly shepherds,
cease your merry layes;
Pipe no more in meadows green,
crown’d with Ivie and with Bayes:
let your flocks no more be seen
on the verdant hillocks spread;
but tune your oaten reeds with saddest notes
to mourne for gentle Willy, your lov’d Lawes is dead.
Weep Shepherd Swaines for him
that was the glory of your plaines:
He could allay the murmurs of the wind;
He could appease the sullen seas
and calme the fury of the mind;
but now (alas) in silent urne he lyes,
hid from us, and never must returne.
HENRY LAWES (1596–1662)
 ROBIN BLAZE
Established in the front rank of interpreters of Purcell,
Bach and Handel, Robin Blaze’s career has taken him to
concert halls and festivals in Europe, South America,
North America, Japan and Australia. He studied Music at
Magdalen College, Oxford, and won a scholarship to the
Royal College of Music where he is now professor of vocal
studies.
© Keith Saunders
14
He works with most of the distinguished conductors
in the early-music field, including Harry Christophers,
John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Robert King,
Nicholas Kraemer, Ton Koopman, Gustav Leonhardt, Sir
Charles Mackerras and Trevor Pinnock. Robin Blaze is a
regular and popular artist at London’s Wigmore Hall, in
recital and with various chamber groups. He made his
debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and
Nicholas Kraemer singing Handel’s Belshazzar in 2004,
and has appeared with several of the great symphony
orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra,
Washington, Royal Flanders Philharmonic, Netherlands
Radio Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic and The Hallé
Orchestra.
Robin Blaze’s opera engagements have included
Athamas (Semele) at Covent Garden and English National
Opera; Didymus (Theodora) for Glyndebourne Festival
Opera; Arsamenes (Xerxes), Oberon (A Midsummer
Night’s Dream) and Hamor (Jephtha) for English Natio-
nal Opera, and Bertarido (Rodelinda) for Glyndebourne
Touring Opera and at the Göttingen Handel Festival.
Robin has made over fifty recordings, and for Hyperion
has recorded songs by William Byrd (CDA67397) and
Thomas Campion (CDA67268) with Concordia and
Elizabeth Kenny, a disc of sacred music by Monteverdi and
his Venetian followers with The Parley of Instruments and
Peter Holman (CDA67225), and with The King’s Consort
and Robert King Handel’s The Choice of Hercules
(CDA67298) and sacred music by Vivaldi, Kuhnau, Schelle
and Zelenka.
 ELIZABETH KENNY
Elizabeth Kenny studied guitar with Michael Lewin and
lute with Nigel North. Robert Spencer and Pat O’Brien
gave her advice and inspiration. She has a solo repertoire
ranging from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century.
She is a principal player in the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment, and regularly appears with other leading
period instrument groups. She has been a regular part of
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants since 1993, and
plays Renaissance music with the viol consorts Concordia
(UK) and L’Ensemble Orlando Gibbons (France). She has
made dozens of recordings for CD, radio and television as
well as touring throughout Europe, the USA and Japan.
Elizabeth Kenny’s special interest in the literature of
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has led
her to create themed programmes with recital partners
including Robin Blaze, Mark Padmore and James
Gilchrist. She spent two years teaching at the Hochschule
15
der Künste in Berlin, and is now professor of lute at
the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 2003 she
introduced the Spencer collection of music, books and
instruments to the public by devising a series of lectures
and concerts culminating in a fully staged Elizabethan
entertainment, which she directed for the City of London
Festival. In 2004–5 she produced a tour of newly edited
works by Charpentier which were written for the Grand
Dauphin, heir to Louis XIV, for an unusual ensemble of
voices, recorders and continuo.
Most recently Elizabeth Kenny has been awarded one
of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Fellow-
ships in the creative and performing arts. The fellowship
at Southampton University will enable her to pursue a
three-year project reassessing the history of seventeenth-
century English song through performances and pub-
lished papers.
© Richard Haughton
 REBECCA OUTRAM discovered her passion for singing
when she joined the chapel choir of Keble College, Oxford.
She went on to study at The Guildhall School of Music and
Drama, and has since built up an impressive career in
a variety of musical fields. She is constantly in demand as
a solo consort artist, and as such has been a founding
member of The Cardinall’s Musick and The Clerks’
Group. She has also recorded regularly for Hyperion with
The King’s Consort and Robert King.
interested in instruments of the lute family and in histori-
cal performance practice. In 1989 he settled in London,
initially as a Fulbright Scholar to study with Nigel North
at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was
one of the founding members of the Palladian Ensemble,
and often appears as a guest artist with ensembles such
as London Baroque, Fretwork and the Locke Consort.
William is principal lutenist of both the Academy of
Ancient Music and the English Concert.

ROBERT MACDONALD was a chorister at Hereford
Cathedral before becoming a choral scholar at Christ
Church, Oxford. After a short period of study at The Royal
Academy of Music, Robert has developed a diverse career
as both a consort singer and a soloist. In the former
capacity he sings regularly with most of the promi-
nent period vocal ensembles in the United Kingdom,
including The Tallis Scholars, The King’s Consort and
The Hilliard Ensemble, and, like Rebecca Outram, is a
founder member of The Cardinall’s Musick and The
Clerks’ Group.
WILLIAM CARTER was born in Jacksonville, Florida.
After studying classical guitar he became increasingly
FRANCES KELLY is well known both as a chamber
musician and as a soloist. Although her interests encom-
pass music from the Middle Ages to the present day, for
the past twenty years she has been increasingly involved
in early music and is a leading exponent of early harps.
Much in demand as a continuo player, she has per-
formed, broadcast and recorded with many distinguished
ensembles including the Gabrieli Consort and Players,
the New London Consort, the Brandenburg Consort, the
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Academy
of Ancient Music, as well as working for English National
Opera, Welsh National Opera and English Touring Opera.
She has a busy teaching practice and is professor of early
harp at Trinity College of Music.

Recorded in All Saints Church, East Finchley, London, on 3–5 May 2006
Recording Engineer JULIAN MILLARD
Recording Producer MARK BROWN
Front Picture Research RICHARD HOWARD
Booklet Editor TIM PARRY
Executive Producer SIMON PERRY
P & C Hyperion Records Ltd, London, MMVII
Front illustration: The Garden of Love (1602) (detail)
by Karel van Mander (1548–1606)
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg / Bridgeman Art Library, London

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 Also available by Robin Blaze and Elizabeth Kenny on Hyperion

THOMAS CAMPION (1567–1620)

‘Move now with measured sound’
ROBIN BLAZE countertenor; ELIZABETH KENNY lute
with DAVID MILLER theorbo, lute; JOANNA LEVINE consort bass viol; MARK LEVY lyra viol
CDA67268
‘Robin Blaze … sings with an effortless ease and tonal beauty capable of delighting in lighter
songs, but also affecting the heart in a more intense utterance such as ‘The cypress curtain of the
night’, one of Campion’s greatest songs’ (Goldberg) ‘Robin Blaze’s countertenor is ideal for these
songs’ (The Daily Telegraph)

WILLIAM BYRD (1539/40–1623)

Consort Songs
ROBIN BLAZE countertenor; CONCORDIA (MARK LEVY, EMILIA BENJAMIN, REIKO ICHISE,
ALISON MCGILLIVRAY, JOANNA LEVINE viols; ELIZABETH KENNY lute)
CDH55429
‘Blessed with a most alluring countertenor—creamy in tone, naturally expressive, exquisitely
controlled—Blaze is the perfect singer for Byrd’s consort songs … Blaze delivers with a
refinement any great lieder singer would be hard pushed to exceed’ (Sunday Times) ‘Blaze
continues to chart new territories of vocal expression. Blending purity with confidence, he draws
on his vocal strengths—effortlessly sustained legato, delicate pianissimos, crisp declamation—
to starkly varied effect, depending on the context of each song’ (BBC Music Magazine) ‘These
songs are pure heaven’ (The Independent) ‘Exquisite singing’ (Classic FM Magazine)

Copyright subsists in all Hyperion recordings and it is illegal to copy them, in whole or in part, for any purpose whatsoever, without
permission from the copyright holder, Hyperion Records Ltd, PO Box 25, London SE9 1AX, England. Any unauthorized copying
or re-recording, broadcasting, or public performance of this or any other Hyperion recording will constitute an infringement of
copyright. Applications for a public performance licence should be sent to Phonographic Performance Ltd, 1 Upper James Street,
London W1F 9DE

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18 www.hyperion-records.co.uk