John Dowland's 400th anniversary year gives this Fairest Isle Festival recital its anchoring point. The programme on the evening of 15 May pairs Dowland with Henry Purcell in a performance that takes place inside Newport Methodist Church, which has the kind of acoustic and architectural intimacy that most music of this kind needs and rarely gets in the right combination. Soprano Ruby Hughes leads, with string players and theorbo.
The programming is specific and considered: Dowland's "Flow my Tears" and Purcell's "Music for a While" both deal in a particular kind of melancholic beauty that has aged without irony. Hughes has the range to make the Purcell feel both formally accomplished and emotionally direct, which is harder than it sounds with early music. The theorbo gives the bass register a physical presence that smaller plucked instruments miss entirely. Newport's church setting, in the heart of the island's capital, puts the music in a working community rather than a concert hall.
Tickets from £21.50, booking via Fairest Isle Festival. Evening performance on 15 May. More music events across the festival weekend on the island.
