Music at Paxton - Dowland’s Shadow

St Cuthbert’s Church, Norham 23/7/25

Toby Carr lute

Paxton’s series of three concerts involving soprano Helen Charlston, pianist Sholto Kynoch and lutenist Toby Carr begins on Wednesday afternoon with a solo lute recital.  The concerts, with their central song recital in Paxton’s Picture Gallery, begin and end in local churches, links which Artistic Director, Angus Smith has said he keen to foster.

Norham, just over the English border, is where James IV spent the last night of his life before the Battle of Flodden, a few miles away.  He had spent the day – and wasted much of his fire power - unsuccessfully assaulting Norham Castle. St Cuthbert’s Church in Norham  suffered collateral damage and was roofless for a hundred years. Today the church with part Romanesque interior is serenely beautiful and a perfect setting for Toby Carr’s concert, ‘Dowland’s Shadow’. The lute is a soft instrument and he sensibly asks the sizeable audience to withhold applause until the end. He plays works by John Dowland, 1563- 1626 and some of his lesser known contemporaries, Robert Johnson, Daniel Bachelor and Philip Rosseter, all introduced by a delightful commentary on the composers and the instrument. Dowland, whose search for a job took him to several European courts, is well-known for his ‘lachrimae’ (tears) music,  published in book-form in his life-time and  including the song ‘Drop, Drop Slow Tears’. His ‘Lacrimae Pavan’ is followed by a group of dance tunes by Robert Johnson – these are slow, graceful and quiet – think soft-shoes rather than clogs! As my ears accustom to the sound, I can appreciate the varying speeds of the Pavans, Galliards and Almains. The name ‘Almains’-later known as ‘Allemagnes’ – are a testament to the Europe-wide popularity of this relatively sprightly dance, and in these versions  work equally well as concert pieces with their ornately decorated passages.

Two works follow  by Philip Rosseter, court musician to James IV’s great grandson, James VI and I after his accession to the English throne.  He collaborated with the poet, Thomas Campion on ‘A Book of Ayres’ and was also a theatre manager. He, like Dowland, wrote melancholy music, which Toby Carr suggests, had a performative aspect, as each writer tried to prove that his grief was the most devastating! Nevertheless Rosseter’s poignant Galliard has a memorable haunting melody. It  leads us into the final number, Dowland’s ‘Frog Galliard’, perhaps a reference to the rude court nickname for Elizabeth I’s erstwhile suitor, the Duc d’Anjou. The concert has been an excellent introduction to music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of which we will hear more in the other concerts of the series.

The appreciative audience consists of people from Norham as well as Paxton regulars. These concerts have provided good publicity for Music at Paxton: both here and after Thursday morning’s concert in Duns Parish Church, local residents are keen to find out more about Paxton’s programme