John Dowland^[a] (c. 1563 – buried 20 February 1626) was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe", "Now o now I needs must part", and "In darkness let me dwell". His instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century's early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists.

Very little is known of Dowland's early life, but it is generally thought he was born in London; some sources even put his birth year as 1563. Irish historian W. H. Grattan Flood claimed that he was born in Dalkey, near Dublin,^[1][b] but no corroborating evidence has been found either for that or for Thomas Fuller's claim that he was born in Westminster.^[2] One piece of evidence points to Dublin as his place of origin: he dedicated the song "From Silent Night" to 'my loving countryman Mr. John Forster the younger, merchant of Dublin in Ireland'. The Forsters were a prominent Dublin family at the time, providing several Lord Mayors to the city.^[c]

In 1580 Dowland went to Paris, where he was in service to Sir Henry Cobham, the ambassador to the French court, and his successor Sir Edward Stafford.^[3] He became a Roman Catholic at this time.^[4] Around 1584, Dowland moved back to England and married. In 1588 he was admitted Mus. Bac. from Christ Church, Oxford.^[5] In 1594 a vacancy for a lutenist came up at the English court, but Dowland's application was unsuccessful. He claimed his religion led to his not being offered a post at Elizabeth I's Protestant court, but his conversion was not publicised, and being Catholic did not prevent some other important musicians (such as William Byrd) from a court career.^[3]

From 1598 Dowland worked at the court of Christian IV of Denmark,^[6] though he continued to publish in London.^[7] King Christian was very interested in music^[8] and paid Dowland astronomical sums; his salary was 500 daler a year, making him one of the highest-paid servants of the Danish court.^[9] Though Dowland was highly regarded by King Christian, he was not the ideal servant, often overstaying his leave when he went to England on publishing business or for other reasons.^[8] Dowland was dismissed in 1606^[8] and returned to England;^[9] in early 1612 he secured a post as one of James I's lutenists.^[10] There are few compositions dating from the moment of his royal appointment until his death in London in 1626.^[11] While the date of his death is not known, "Dowland's last payment from the court was on 20 January 1626, and he was buried at St Ann's, Blackfriars, London, on 20 February 1626."^[12]

Two major influences on Dowland's music were popular consort songs and the dance music of the day.^[13] Most of Dowland's music is for his own instrument, the lute.^[14] It includes several books of solo lute works, lute songs (for one voice and lute), part-songs with lute accompaniment, and several pieces for viol consort with lute.^[15] The poet Richard Barnfield wrote that Dowland's "heavenly touch upon the lute doth ravish human sense."

John Dowland (1563-1626) - The King of Denmark Galliard à5, Lachrimae, No.11

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John Dowland (1563–1626) – Mistress Nichols Almand à5, Lachrimae, No.20

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John Dowland (1563–1626) – M. George Whitehead His Almand, Lachrimae, No.21

Performed by Phillip W. Serna, Treble, Tenor & Bass Viols with Violone

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One of his better known works is the lute song "Flow my tears", the first verse of which runs:

Flow my tears, fall from your springs,
Exil'd for ever let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.

— John Dowland^[16]

He later wrote what is probably his best known instrumental work, Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares, Figured in Seaven Passionate Pavans, a set of seven pavanes for five viols and lute, each based on the theme derived from the lute song "Flow my tears".^[17] It became one of the best known collections of consort music in his time. His pavane "Lachrymae antiquae" was also popular in the 17th century, and was arranged and used as a theme for variations by many composers. He wrote a lute version of the popular ballad "My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home".

Dowland's music often displays a melancholia rare in music at that time, and he pioneered it together with Johann Froberger.^[18] He wrote a consort piece with the punning title "Semper Dowland, semper dolens" (always Dowland, always doleful), which may be said to sum up much of his work.^[19]

Richard Barnfield, Dowland's contemporary, refers to him in poem VIII of The Passionate Pilgrim (1598), a Shakespearean sonnet:

If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.

Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such
As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.

Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd
When as himself to singing he betakes.

One god is god of both, as poets feign;
One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

— Richard Barnfield, The Passionate Pilgrim^[20]

Until 2024, only one comprehensive monograph of Dowland's life and works, by Diana Poulton, was available in print.^[21] A more updated biography by K. Dawn Grapes was published in July 2024.^[22] The fullest catalog list of Dowland's works is that compiled by K. Dawn Grapes in John Dowland: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge, 2019).^[23] The numbering for the lute pieces follow the same system as Diana Poulton created in her The Collected Lute Music of John Dowland. P numbers are therefore sometimes used to designate individual pieces.

Many of Dowland's works survive only in manuscript form.^[21]

Published by Thomas Est in 1592, The Whole Booke of Psalmes contained works by 10 composers, including 6 pieces by Dowland.

1. Put me not to rebuke, O Lord (Psalm 38)
2. All people that on earth do dwell (Psalm 100)
3. My soul praise the Lord (Psalm 104)
4. Lord to thee I make my moan (Psalm 130)
5. Behold and have regard (Psalm 134)
6. A Prayer for the Queens most excellent Maiestie

The New Booke of Tabliture was published by William Barley in 1596. It contains seven solo lute pieces by Dowland.

Perhaps written for the professional choir of Westminster Abbey.^[24]

1. The Lamentation of a sinner
2. Domine ne in furore (Psalm 6)
3. Miserere mei Deus (Psalm 51)
4. The humble sute of a sinner
5. The humble complaint of a sinner
6. De profundis (Psalm 130)
7. Domine exaudi (Psalm 143)

Of uncertain attribution are:

1. Ye righteous in the Lord
2. An heart that's broken
3. I shame at my unworthiness

Dowland in London in 1597 published his First Booke of Songes or Ayres, a set of 21 lute-songs and one of the most influential collections in the history of the lute.^[3] Brian Robins wrote that "many of the songs were composed long before the publication date, [...] However, far from being immature, the songs of Book I reveal Dowland as a fully fledged master."^[25] It is set out in a way that allows performance by a soloist with lute accompaniment or by various other combinations of singers and instrumentalists.^[26] The lute-songs are listed below.^[27] After them, at the end of the collection, comes "My Lord Chamberlaine, His Galliard", a piece for two people to play on one lute.^[28]

1. Vnquiet thoughts
2. Who euer thinks or hopes of loue for loue
3. My thoughts are wingd with hopes
4. If my complaints could passions moue
5. Can she excuse my wrongs with vertues cloake
6. Now, O now I needs must part ("The Frog Galliard")
7. Deare if you change ile neuer chuse againe
8. Burst forth my teares
9. Go Cristall teares
10. Thinkst thou then by thy faining
11. Come away, come sweet loue
12. Rest awhile you cruell cares
13. Sleepe wayward thoughts
14. All ye whom loue of fortune hath betraide
15. Wilt though vnkind thus reaue me of my hart
16. Would my conceit that first enforst my woe
17. Come again: sweet loue doth now enuite
18. His goulden locks time hath to siluer turnd
19. Awake sweet loue thou art returned
20. Come heauy sleepe
21. Awaie with these selfe louing lads

Dowland published his Second Booke of Songs or Ayres in 1600.^[17] It has 22 lute songs.^[29] There is also an instrumental work, Dowland’s adew for Master Oliver Cromwell. The songs are as follows:

1. I saw my Lady weepe
2. Flow my teares fall from your springs
3. Sorow sorow stay, lend true repentant teares
4. Dye not before thy day
5. Mourne, mourne, day is with darknesse fled
6. Tymes eldest sonne, old age the heire of ease, First part
7. Then sit thee downe, and say thy Nunc demittis, Second Part
8. When others sings Venite exultemus, Third part
9. Praise blindnesse eies, for seeing is deceipt
10. O sweet woods, the delight of solitarienesse
11. If fluds of teares could clense my follies past
12. Fine knacks for Ladies, cheap, choise, braue and new
13. Now cease my wandring eyes
14. Come ye heavie states of night
15. White as Lillies was hir face
16. Wofull heart with griefe oppressed
17. A Sheperd in a shade his plaining made
18. Faction that euer dwells in court
19. Shall I sue, shall I seeke for grace
20. Finding in fields my Siluia all alone (Toss not my soul)
21. Cleare or Cloudie sweet as Aprill showring
22. Humor say what makst thou heere

The Third and Last Booke of Songs or Aires was published in 1603.^[17]

The 21 songs are:

1. Farewell too faire
2. Time stands still
3. Behold the wonder heere
4. Daphne wast not so chaste as she was changing
5. Me me and none but me
6. When Phoebus first did Daphne loue
7. Say loue if euer thou didst finde
8. Flow not so fast ye fountaines
9. What if I neuer speede
10. Loue stood amaz'd at sweet beauties paine
11. Lend your eares to my sorrow good people
12. By a fountaine where I lay
13. Oh what hath ouerwrought my all amazed thought
14. Farewell vnkind farewell
15. Weepe you no more sad fountaines
16. Fie on this faining, is loue without desire
17. I must complaine, yet doe enioy
18. It was a time when silly Bees could speake
19. The lowest trees haue tops
20. What poore Astronomers are they
21. Come when I call, or tarrie till I come

The Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares was published in 1604.^[17] It contains the seven pavans of Lachrimae itself and 14 others, including the famous Semper Dowland semper Dolens.

1. Lachrimae Antiquae
2. Lachrimae Antiquae Nouae
3. Lachrimae Gementes
4. Lachrimae Tristes
5. Lachrimae Coactae
6. Lachrimae Amantis
7. Lachrimae Verae
8. Semper Dowland semper Dolens (P.9)
9. Sir Henry Vmptons Funeral
10. M. Iohn Langtons Pauan
11. The King of Denmarks Galiard (P.40)
12. The Earle of Essex Galiard
13. Sir Iohn Souch his Galiard
14. M. Henry Noell his Galiard
15. M. Giles Hoby his Galiard
16. M. Nicho. Gryffith his Galiard
17. M. Thomas Collier his Galiard with two trebles
18. Captaine Piper his Galiard (P.19)
19. M. Bucton his Galiard
20. Mrs Nichols Almand
21. M. George Whitehead his Almand

Dowland published a translation of the Micrologus of Andreas Ornithoparcus in 1609, originally printed in Latin in Leipzig in 1517.

This was published by Dowland's son Robert in 1610 and contains solo lute works by his father and others.

This was likewise published by Dowland's son that year. It contains three songs by his father:

1. Farre from Triumphing Court
2. Lady If You So Spight Me
3. In Darknesse Let Me Dwell

Dowland's last work A Pilgrimes Solace, was published in 1612,^[30] and seems to have been conceived more as a collection of contrapuntal music than as solo works.^[31] Edmund Fellowes praised it as the last masterpiece in the English school of lutenist song before John Attey's First Booke of Ayres of Foure Parts, with Tableture for the Lute (1622).^[32] John Palmer also wrote, "Although this book produced no hits, it is arguably Dowland's best set, evincing his absorption of the style of the Italian monodists."^[33]

1. Disdaine me still, that I may euer loue
2. Sweete stay a while, why will you?
3. To aske for all thy loue
4. Loue those beames that breede
5. Shall I striue with wordes to moue
6. Were euery thought an eye
7. Stay time a while thy flying
8. Tell me true Loue
9. Goe nightly cares, the enemy to rest
10. From silent night, true register of moanes
11. Lasso vita mia, mi fa morire
12. In this trembling shadow
13. If that a Sinners sighes be Angels food
14. Thou mighty God
15. When Dauids life by Saul
16. When the poore Criple
17. Where Sinne sore wounding
18. My heart and tongue were twinnes
19. Vp merry Mates, to Neptunes praise
20. Welcome black night
21. Cease these false sports
22. A Galliard to Lachrimae

Dowland performed a number of espionage assignments for Sir Robert Cecil in France and Denmark; despite his high rate of pay, Dowland seems to have been only a court musician.^[8] However, we have in his own words the fact that he was for a time embroiled in treasonous Catholic intrigue in Italy,^[34] whither he had travelled in the hopes of meeting and studying with Luca Marenzio, a famed madrigal composer.^[3] Whatever his religion, however, he was still intensely loyal to the Queen, though he seems to have had something of a grudge against her for her remark that he, Dowland, "was a man to serve any prince in the world, but [he] was an obstinate Papist."^[35] But in spite of this, and though the plotters offered him a large sum of money from the Pope, as well as safe passage for his wife and children to come to him from England,^[36] in the end he declined to have anything further to do with their plans and begged pardon from Sir Robert Cecil and from the Queen.^[37]

John Dowland was married and had children, as referenced in his letter to Sir Robert Cecil.^[38] However, he had long periods of separation from his family, as his wife stayed in England while he worked on the Continent.^[39]

His son Robert Dowland (c. 1591 – 1641) was also a musician, working for some time in the service of the first Earl of Devonshire,^[11] and taking over his father's position of lutenist at court when John died.^[40]

Dowland's melancholic lyrics (Archived 16 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine) and music have often been described as his attempts to develop an "artistic persona" in spite of actually being a cheerful person,^[18] but many of his own personal complaints, and the tone of bitterness in many of his comments, suggest that much of his music and his melancholy truly did come from his own personality and frustration.^[41]

One of the first 20th-century musicians who successfully helped reclaim Dowland from the history books was the singer-songwriter Frederick Keel.^[42] Keel included fifteen Dowland pieces in his two sets of Elizabethan love songs published in 1909 and 1913,^[43] which achieved popularity in their day. These free arrangements for piano and low or high voice were intended to fit the tastes and musical practices associated with art songs of the time.

In 1935, Australian-born composer Percy Grainger, who also had a deep interest in music made before Bach, arranged Dowland's Now, O now I needs must part for piano. Some years later, in 1953, Grainger wrote a work titled Bell Piece (Ramble on John Dowland's 'Now, O now I needs must part'), which was a version scored for voice and wind band, based on his previously mentioned transcription.

In 1951 the counter-tenor Alfred Deller recorded songs by Dowland, Thomas Campion, and Philip Rosseter with the label HMV (His Master's Voice) HMV C.4178 and another HMV C.4236 of Dowland's "Flow my Tears". In 1977, Harmonia Mundi also published two records of Deller singing Dowland's Lute songs (HM 244&245-H244/246).^[44]

Dowland's song "Come Heavy Sleepe, the Image of True Death" was the inspiration for Benjamin Britten's Nocturnal after John Dowland, written in 1963 for the guitarist Julian Bream. It consists of eight variations, all based on musical themes drawn from the song or its lute accompaniment, finally resolving into a guitar setting of the song itself.^[45]

Dowland's music became part of the repertoire of the early music revival with Bream and tenor Peter Pears, and later with Christopher Hogwood and David Munrow and the Early Music Consort in the late 1960s and later with the Academy of Ancient Music from the early 1970s.

Jan Akkerman, guitarist of the Dutch progressive rock band Focus, recorded "Tabernakel" in 1973 (though released in 1974), an album of John Dowland songs and some original material, performed on lute.

The complete works of John Dowland were recorded by the Consort of Musicke, and released on the L'Oiseau Lyre label, though they recorded some of the songs as vocal consort music;^[23] the Third Book of Songs and A Pilgrim's Solace have yet to be recorded in their entirety as collections of solo songs.

The 1999 ECM New Series recording In Darkness Let Me Dwell features new interpretations of Dowland songs performed by tenor John Potter, lutenist Stephen Stubbs, and baroque violinist Maya Homburger in collaboration with English jazz musicians John Surman and Barry Guy.

Nigel North recorded Dowland's complete works for solo lute on four CDs between 2004 and 2007, on Naxos records.

Paul O'Dette recorded the complete lute works for Harmonia Mundi on five CDs issued from 1995 to 1997.

Jordi Savall and his Hespèrion XX issued recordings of the "Lachrimae or Seven Teares" in 2000 and 2013.

Elvis Costello included a recording (with Fretwork and the Composers Ensemble) of Dowland's "Can she excuse my wrongs" as a bonus track on the 2006 re-release of his The Juliet Letters.

In October 2006, Sting, who says he has been fascinated by the music of John Dowland for 25 years,^[46] released an album featuring Dowland's songs titled Songs from the Labyrinth, on Deutsche Grammophon, in collaboration with Edin Karamazov on lute and archlute. They described their treatment of Dowland's work in a Great Performances appearance.^[47] To give some idea of the tone and intrigues of life in late Elizabethan England, Sting also recites throughout the album portions of a 1593 letter written by Dowland to Sir Robert Cecil.^[48] The letter describes Dowland's travels to various points of Western Europe, then breaks into a detailed account of his activities in Italy, along with a heartfelt denial of the charges of treason whispered against him by unknown persons. Dowland most likely was suspected of this for travelling to the courts of various Catholic monarchs and accepting payment from them greater than what a musician of the time would normally have received for performing.^[34]

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick referred to Dowland in many of his works, including the novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974), even using the pseudonym "Jack Dowland" once.

The Collected Lute Music of John Dowland, with lute tablature and keyboard notation, was transcribed and edited by Diana Poulton and Basil Lam, Faber Music Limited, London 1974.

• Grapes, K. Dawn (2019), John Dowland: A Research and Information Guide, Routledge, ISBN 9781138298552
• Grapes, K. Dawn (2024). Dowland. Composers Across Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-755885-0.
• Jarchow, Ralf (2004), Ernst Schele – Tabulaturbuch, 1619, Glinde: Jarchow 2004/2009. (facsimile and commentary; with three unique works by Dowland)
• Poulton, Diana, ed. (1978), The Collected Lute Music of John Dowland (2nd ed.), Faber Music, ISBN 0-571-10024-4
• Salfield, Ben, ed. (2014), John Dowland: Complete Solo Galliards for Renaissance Lute or Guitar, Peacock Press

• "John Dowland Archived 8 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine" – Oxford Bibliographies (biography and annotated source suggestions)
• The work of John Dowland – list of publications and works. (Partially in German)
• Free scores by John Dowland in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Works by John Dowland at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Dowland at the Internet Archive
• Works by John Dowland at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Free scores by John Dowland at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• The Mutopia Project has compositions by John Dowland
• Music Collection Archived 11 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine in Cambridge Digital Library, which contains many early copies/examples of Dowland's compositions

• Some video performances of John Dowland's songs by Valeria Mignaco, soprano & Alfonso Marin, lute Archived 5 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
• "Four Pieces by John Dowland played by Brian Wright, lute" Archived 6 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine. 4 December 2008.
• Another Lute Website Archived 19 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Overview of video's of solo work and songs of John Dowland.
• "Lachrimae or Seaven Teares, 1604" Archived 2 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine by Hespèrion XX dir. Jordi Savall.