In 1597 John Dowland (1563-1626) published his first collection of music, The First Book of Songs or Airs of Four Parts with Tableture for the Lute. A groundbreaking work in several respects, not least in that it was the first published collection of English lute songs, it success was immediate, and was reprinted several times. His Second Book of Songs or Airs (1600) shows the increasingly solo nature of the lute-song, as Dowland left the first eight songs as lute solos. Soprano Maria Skiba specializes in historical performance practice with an emphasis on music from the 16th-17th c.
