![](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/3\/36\/Songs_from_the_Labyrinth.jpg\")
STING & EDIN KARAMAZOV: Songs from the Labyrinth
Dowland Anniversary Edition
CD + DVD
INTERNATIONAL RELEASE DATE: 16 AUGUST 2013<\/p>\n
STING & EDIN KARAMAZOV: Songs from the Labyrinth
Dowland Anniversary Edition
CD + DVD
INTERNATIONAL RELEASE DATE: 16 AUGUST 2013<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sting\u2019s stunning Dowland album, the most intriguing classical disc of 2006, sold nearly 800,000 copies.<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In this year of the 450th anniversary of John Dowland\u2019s birth, DG presents a special edition, bringing together for the first time all of the audio recordings and video material in a single package.<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THE CD comprises the original album along with live versions of several of the songs performed at the St. Luke\u2019s concert in London in 2007, plus the celebrated renditions of \u201cFields of Gold\u201d, \u201cMessage In A Bottle\u201d and \u201cHellhound On My Trail\u201d that brought the house down.<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THE DVD \u201cThe Journey and the Labyrinth\u201d, an original television special, weaves captivating performances, interviews, historical information and readings of Dowland\u2019s personal correspondence that serve as a soundtrack to the composer\u2019s life. It also includes live material from St. Luke\u2019s Church in London, where Sting performs selection from the original album, as well as adaptations of his most famous hits.<\/p>\n
DVD BONUS FEATURES:<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Behind the scenes rehearsal from St. Luke\u2019s performance, including \u201cMessage In A Bottle\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 St. Luke\u2019s concerette including \u201cFields Of Gold\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Edin Karamazov solo<\/p>\n
DELUXE ARTWORK & PACKAGING<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Based on the original album artwork, the rigid slipcase encloses two mintpacks whose design emphasizes the labyrinth motif<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The 40-page booklet in English includes Sting\u2019s original album notes plus a newly commissioned article by English journalist Adam Sweeting:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about development\u201d
One of Sting\u2019s most artistically gratifying projects was Songs from the Labyrinth, which grew out of his study of composer John Dowland and his Elizabethan milieu. The album, and accompanying live performances, awakened an undreamt-of level of interest in Dowland\u2019s music. The disc hit the top of the classical charts, but also managed the rare feat for a classical album of reaching number 25 on the US Billboard 200 and number 24 on the UK pop charts, while selling strongly across Europe. Sting may have brought Dowland to more listeners with this one project than all previous Dowland releases combined.<\/p>\n
Sting\u2019s proposition was that despite the fact that he lived 400 years ago, Dowland was a surprisingly modern artist who could, in some ways, remind us of the \u201calienated singer-songwriter\u201d of our own times. It doesn\u2019t take much of a leap of the imagination to hear echoes of Dowland\u2019s poetically troubled spirit and even his musical structures in contemporary songwriters. Most importantly, thinking about Dowland in this way offered Sting a valid way to approach his work, freeing the material from its traditional academic associations.<\/p>\n
Those listeners who were already aware of Dowland would have heard his music in versions by the English countertenor Alfred Deller, or by lutenist Julian Bream with the tenor Peter Pears, or in the recordings of the early music specialists David Munrow and Christopher Hogwood. In other words, Dowland\u2019s music had been placed firmly within the \u201cclassical\u201d or \u201cearly music\u201d spheres, with their attendant rules and conventions.<\/p>\n
Sting, intrigued by the Dowland compositions he had heard, wanted to find a way to illuminate the work of a great British artist of an earlier era by using his skills as a contemporary popular musician. This wasn\u2019t a \u201ccrossover\u201d version of Dowland watered down to appeal to a mass audience, but a way of interpreting Dowland\u2019s music that could be considered as artistically valid as any other versions that preceded it.<\/p>\n
Sting\u2019s solution was to sing the songs in an English vernacular style pitched in an almost conversational way, in contrast to the less naturalistic medium of the countertenor voice (in his own album notes, Sting writes of the way Dowland\u2019s music \u201clends itself to the proximity and whispering closeness of the modern microphone\u201d). Whether it\u2019s dancing among the bright, brisk rhythms of Come Again or navigating the solemn formality of Dowland\u2019s powerful ode to melancholy, In Darkness Let Me Dwell, Sting\u2019s voice is immediate and expressive, its slight huskiness lending an overlay of worldly-wise experience.
\u201cHaving listened to a lot of Dowland records, I thought that no-one was doing what I could do,\u201d said Sting. \u201cI don\u2019t have that trained operatic voice, but this music was composed around 1600 and the bel canto style wasn\u2019t invented until 100 years later. I imagine people would have sung without that technique.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fact that Dowland\u2019s chosen instrument was the lute also helped to persuade Sting that this was a project he must pursue. It\u2019s the obvious forerunner of the guitar and was the instrument of choice of the wandering minstrel of its era, as the guitar is the ubiquitous companion of pop and folk singers today. Sting is a capable guitar player, but his desire to broaden himself musically was piqued by the idea of tackling the different demands of the lute, with its mysterious tunings and strings arranged in pairs. \u201cFor me it\u2019s all about development,\u201d he said. \u201cYou improve by putting yourself at risk creatively or entering a milieu that may seem uncomfortable at first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sting was wise enough to realise that he would not become a master lutenist overnight. His decision to recruit Bosnian lute virtuoso Edin Karamazov was what gave the project its necessary ballast of historical authenticity and sheer musical expertise. Karamazov, trained at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and a collaborator with the likes of the Hilliard Ensemble, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the countertenor Andreas Scholl, is a superb accompanist, while his solo pieces on Songs from the Labyrinth sizzle with inventiveness and stunning dexterity.<\/p>\n
The obvious musical bond between the two musicians lay at the root of the album\u2019s success. An additional important ingredient was Sting\u2019s decision to include spoken extracts from a letter Dowland wrote to Sir Robert Cecil, Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Secretary of State, which suggest some of the personal and political concerns weighing on the composer\u2019s mind. They helped to make the album feel like a developing personal story rather than a random selection of songs. As Gramophone magazine wrote of Sting\u2019s achievement, \u201che and Karamazov manage to bring Dowland before the listener as a living, breathing person in a way more orthodox recordings often fail to do.\u201d
Adam Sweeting<\/p>\n
Source: EMI Music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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