Artist: Alexander Chance, Toby Carr
Title: Drop not, Mine Eyes
Year Of Release: 2023
Label: Linn Records
Genre: Classical
Quality: 24bit-96kHz FLAC (tracks + booklet)
Total Time: 01:05:55
Total Size: 992 MB

Tracklist:

1. 6 Ayres for Four Voices: No. 2, Can She excuse My Wrongs? (2:56)
2. Praeludium (1:25)
3. The Second Book of Songes: No. 1, I Saw My Lady Weep (5:41)
4. The Second Book of Songes: No. 2, Flow, My Tears (4:33)
5. Captain Digorie Piper, His Galliard (2:21)
6. I Care Not for These Ladies (2:36)
7. The Cypress Curtain of the Night (3:43)
8. Never Weather-Beaten Sail (2:17)
9. Mignarda (3:04)
10. What Then Is Love (3:41)
11. Fair, Sweet, Cruel (2:00)
12. Pavan (3:58)
13. He Whose Desires Are Still Abroad (2:15)
14. In Darkness Let Me Dwell (4:04)
15. Entrée d’Apollon (After Jean-Baptiste Lully's "Le triomphe de l'amour") (2:13)
16. O Solitude, My Sweetest Choice!, Z. 406 (5:19)
17. Prelude (0:53)
18. Now That the Sun Hath Veiled His Light, Z. 193 (4:45)
19. Mrs. M. E. Her Funeral Tears for the Death of Her Husband: I. Grief, Keep Within (2:46)
20. Mrs. M. E. Her Funeral Tears for the Death of Her Husband: II. Drop Not, Mine Eyes (2:40)
21. Mrs. M. E. Her Funeral Tears for the Death of Her Husband: III. Have All Our Passions (2:55)

Named Gramophone’s One to Watch and winner of the 2022 International Handel Singing Competition, Alexander Chance makes his recording debut on Linn. Drop not, mine eyes is a recital of English lute songs that soaks up the zeitgeist of the past couple of years to create a programme full of melancholic works by Dowland, Campion, Danyel, Purcell and others. If the ever-popular Dowland was readily prone to sadness, as exemplified by the pair I saw my lady weep and Flow, my tears, or indeed In darkness let me dwell, the polymath Thomas Campion favoured a more sober style, as shown in I care not for these ladies. Thomas Ford displays his more profane side here with Fair, sweet, cruel and What then is love. When it comes to melancholy, John Danyel’s Grief, keep within and Drop not, mine eyes are every bit as good as Dowland. The programme closes with Purcell, the other English Orpheus. Toby Carr provides sympathetic accompaniment on lute and theorbo.