The Song From the 1500’s That Blows Rick Beato Away: An Introduction to John Dowland’s Entrancing Music

In 2006, Sting released an album called Songs from the Labyrinth, a collaboration with Bosnian lutenist Edin Karamazov consisting mostly of compositions by Renaissance composer John Dowland. This was regarded by some as rather eccentric, but to listeners familiar with the early music revival that had already been going on for a few decades, it would have been almost too obvious a choice. For Dowland had long since been rediscovered as one of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century’s musical superstars...