The American lutenist, educator, scholar and conductor Paul O’Dette has been at the top of his field now for more years than many of us have had hot dinners. He cut his first disc back in 1979 and has since made over 140 recordings, winning two Grammys and being nominated a remarkable seven times. In other words, he’s a bit of a living legend. His set of the complete lute music of John Dowland on Harmonia Mundi remains a benchmark, one reason why this particular recital – Mr. Dowland’s Midnight – part of New York’s enterprising Music Before 1800 series, was a must see. That is was also performed in an intimate, wood-panelled room that held a mere 70 people upstairs at Manhattan’s Kosciuszko Foundation was the icing on the cake.

O’Dette remains the same slightly puckish figure to be found reclining on a grassy hillside with Jakob Lindberg on the cover of my 1985 copy of English Lute Duets. The hair may be grey, the trademark beard now snowy white (shades of His golden locks time hath to silver turn’d from The First Booke of Songs or Ayres, Dowland’s moving...