John Dowland Flow my tears: a musical analysis. Dr Nick Redfern
Music Through the Microscope Book 7 Kindle Edition
Flow my tears is one of John Dowland’s most distinctive and crafted lute songs and stands as the epitome of late Renaissance melancholy and sublime imagery. This highly expressive work is one of Dowland’s most renowned creations. It was renowned throughout Dowland’s contemporary Europe, and this was not merely for the work’s deeply lyrical counterpoint but for its taught structural outline and its sheer compositional mastery.
The strong melodic drive is examined to reveal an intriguing composition model based on highly characterised web of musical motifs. These motifs, in turn, bring a symbolic weight to this most poignant of Dowland’s impassioned and lovelorn compositions. Indeed, the analysis reveals the work’s motivic structure to be akin to many works of the Twentieth Century.
This analysis is not a critique of the composer and does not seek to explore the cultural contextual or historical aspects of the music.
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