Dowland died 400 years ago, but his delectable brand of melancholy has lost nothing of its potency over the centuries. And this exquisite album from soprano Ruby Hughes, lutenist Jonas Nordberg and viola da gamba player Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann, a follow-up to the same team’s Heroines of Love and Loss of 2017, sets the bar high for celebrations in his anniversary year. 

Amidst the Shades opens with Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite, from his First Book of Ayres of 1597. Hughes’s voice hangs in the air like some sublime magic, but it’s not just the beautiful purity of her tone that bewitches, nor her dynamic control, shading the subtleties of mood as, for instance, we step into the nocturnal world of dreams. But what really stands out is the way she conveys the words, bringing life to each one, as she sighs, weeps, faints and dies. 

These qualities hold true for all four Dowland songs: a nimbly sung Can She Excuse my Wrongs?; a poised Time Stands Still; and a Flow, My Tears