A Pilgrimes Solace

Abstract John Dowland’s final lute song–air collection, A Pilgrimes Solace (1612), reads and sounds differently from his previous music anthologies, both in content and substance. A more advanced, complex compositional style is immediately evident. The poetry Dowland set, including verses by Nicholas Breton, reached a previously unseen level of sophistication and the music attains levels of difficulty that may not have been as accessible for domestic music makers as his earlier songbooks were. These are only some of the reasons that this final songbook, as masterful as it may be musically, did not reach the level of popularity of Dowland’s First Booke, which was still yet to receive its fourth reprint, or even his second or third song collections, as evidenced by the lack of transcriptions and adaptations of the volume’s pieces found in English or Continental manuscripts, when compared with his previous work. Yet in this songbook, Dowland expresses a new level of personal spirituality in songs such as “Go nightly cares,” “If that a sinners’ sighs,” and “Where sin sore wounding,” that does not occur in his earlier musical anthologies. The volume also includes dramatic dialogues that point to his involvement in theatrical entertainments for Queen Elizabeth I and volume dedicatee Theophilus Howard, Lord Walden. A full consideration of the volume’s prefatory material, organization, and musical content presents the image of a somber Dowland, reflecting back on his career and life choices, thus providing a self-administered Pilgrimes Solace.