Liam Guilar's 'Lute Recitals'

The Poetry Voice is fifty! And here is something different to celebrate.

This poem was inspired by a contrast; Allan Alexander’s ‘Castles In the Sky’, a Cd that alterted me to the pleasures of the lute, and a bizarre conversation with a lutenist, who derided ‘Castles in the Sky’ for not being ‘Authentic’. Apparently everything has to be ‘authentic’. I started wondering what an authentic Dowland performance would have been like.

The music i’m playing in the background is Allan’s ‘Dance of the Washerwoman’….his guitar arrangement of a Renaissance lute piece.

‘Lute Recitals’ first appeared in the journal 'Southerly' and then in my book, "I'll Howl before you bury me'.