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John Dowland - composer, diplomat, spy and possible traitor was born 450 years ago in 1563. His life, even what little we know of it, was full of riches and enigmas, and his music created a directness of emotional expression and technical sophistication that his contemporaries admired greatly. Today, everyone from Harrison Birtwistle to Sting is bewitched by the power of Dowland's songs and instrumental pieces.

Tom Service meets his biographer Peter Holman at the Royal Academy of Music to encounter a Dowland treasury of prints and manuscripts, and in the Chapterhouse of York Minster, countertenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Jacob Heringman perform arguably Dowland's most important single song, ‘In Darkness Let Me Dwell’.
Broadcast January 2013.