John Dowland's reputation for depressed character may be summed up in the witty phrase semper Dowland, semper dolens (always Dowland, always grieving). Despite his musical talent, his wide popularity in Elizabethan England, and his prestigious education in music at both English universities, it took Dowland decades to achieve proper recognition and employment at court. In addition, his most popular song of all time may have been the Pavane of Tears. At least once in his life, however, Dowland seems to have made fun of his own reputation, or at least acknowledged it. In his fouth book of English songs with lute, vocal, and viol accompaniment, the 1612 A Pilgrimes Solace, he seized a choice opportunity to be self-reflexive. In the song From silent night, true register of moans, he sets a poem in which the poet's grief is relieved by letting the "wailing Muse" give "tunes of sad despair" back to the world. Such artistic venting is what Dowland did all of his life!

Indeed, Dowland seems to have let his muse run a bit amok in From silent night, true register of moans. Though he is known throughout his four volumes of lute airs for shapely and careful melodies, this piece contains a plethora of affective accidentals. The very opening measures give a sharp suspension to the bass voice, and the melody quickly responds with chromatic beauties of its own. Certainly no singer of the time would miss the musical way the composer portrays the "saddest soul consumed with deepest sins," the "heart quite rent with sighs and heavy groans." The "wailing muse" gets her own shocking chord, and Dowland gives both bass and melody a true chromatic melody to evoke that muse's gift to the world when the text mentions "tunes of sad despair." After venting through three verses in this musically extroverted fashion, it is no wonder that the composer believes that "grief and sorrow must my cares relieve." The piece's personal significance to Dowland may even have led him to give it a surprisingly personal dedication: "To my loving countryman Mr. John Forster the younger, merchant of Dublin in Ireland."

© All Music Guide