A Pleasing Melancholy – Emma Kirkby

   in Early Music Today (Dec, 2017)
Emma Kirkby continues to amaze as much as – or more than – at any other time in her long and distinguished career. Has her art ever been more daring, emotionally and expressively, than it is now? And this without ever threatening the boundaries of good taste … her wealth of experience guarantees a total understanding of how to bring alive simply what’s there in the notes, in this extraordinary music. No more, no less. Try anything on this album, whether by Dowland or his followers in the melancholic tradition such as Tobias Hume (‘What greater grief’) or John Danyel (‘Eyes, look no more’ and ‘If I could shut the gate …