What I’m listening to #2

Lutes galore: last time it was Anthony Rooley playing Dowland, now it is Paul O’Dette playing Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s Lute Book.

Lovely music and Herbert (1583-1648) was the very definition of a Renaissance man – composer, theologian, diplomat, soldier, poet (born at Eyton-on-Severn, he was a Shropshire lad and George Herbert was his brother) and a bit of a shagger (his autobiography is described as an “amusing narrative, too much occupied, however, with his duels and amorous adventures”) – but the portrait on the cover makes him look like Waikato Times columnist Joshua Drummond in a frock. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.