Astonishingly, this is Hopkinson Smith's first recording of the lute music of John Dowland. Although he made some of the finest recordings of the lute music of composers from Attaingnant and Bach to Visée and Weiss, Smith has not heretofore recorded any of Dowland's. It seems odd: Dowland -- Semper Dowland semper dolens -- was not only always melancholy and not only one of England's greatest song composers, he was also arguably its finest lute composer. In this recital entitled A Dream, Smith has grouped selections from Dowland's works in sets with a prelude and interludes and it works brilliantly. Smith's Three Feminine Portraits are supple, sensitive, and sensual. His Dowland on the Continent is witty, ingratiating, and virtuosic. His concluding Dowland's Lamentation, including the inevitable Semper Dowland semper dolens, is doleful, mournful, and utterly ineffable. And his opening Frogg Galliard is as funny as anything Louis Armstrong ever recorded. Smith's playing -- always one of the marvels of endless technique, impeccable taste, and deep soulfulness -- is as commanding and compelling as it is in Bach or Weiss. Naïve's digital recording reproduces the sound of Smith's eight-course lute perfectly.