Freeing The Voice

The Dowland Project, established by ECM's Manfred Eicher, would not please musical purists; in this installment, Romaria, it brings together an assortment of old and new instruments, including violin, viola, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, tenor and bass recorders, Baroque guitar, and vihuela, performing music spanning nearly a millennium, most of it written before most of these instruments had been developed. The producer and performers may have deliberately chosen to ignore the principle of authentic performance practice, duplicating as closely as possible the sound of the music at the time it was created, but they are principled in the aesthetic decisions they have made.