An afternoon concert of Cavalier songs and partsongs - cheerful songs from a troubled time. Few artists can have felt the transience of love and life more keenly than the 'Cavalier' poets and musicians of the early 17th century. In this programme English Ayres tell the story of a cavalier's life, with the partsongs of Lanier, Wilson, the Lawes brothers, Locke and their contemporaries. As befits their theme, and the character of the society that made them, these seldom-heard Cavalier partsongs are at the same time as light as a feather, yet achingly poignant - and surprisingly modern in their preoccupations..

Audio clips featuring Jeni Melia, Christopher Goodwin, and Kathryn Hamilton-Hall are reproduced by kind permission of Magnatune from album Sister Awake.