Rose Tremain's novel Music and Silence, set in the Danish court of Christian IV where Dowland was a well-paid musician, depicts him tellingly: "The man was all ambition and hatred, yet his ayres were as delicate as rain".
For starters, there's the young British soul singer's voice, a supple tenor that he often pushes into falsetto – high and striking, certainly, but seemingly as delicate as rain.
Bassey's tendency to wring the juice out of everything she sings meant Hawley's delicate After the Rain crumpled under her delivery, but she turned in a surprisingly subtle version of Bradfield's melancholy The Girl From Tiger Bay.
A generic, dinner-jazzy quality tugs at this music at times, but as Springs's own delicate jazz-ballad Rain Falling confirms, she has a rare ability that can't be taught – to sound like an old soul, just doing what comes naturally.
But nothing detracts from the man's angelic physical mastery, the delicate patter of rain he evokes as he bourrées flamenco-style across a metallic section of floor; the roiling, circular intensity of the rhythm at 1.12 and sheer visual brio of having his hands dance (2.30) while his feet kick up a sandstorm.
Other works that reward a lingering look include four large watercolors by Behrang Samadzadegan in which tree-sized fungi and a delicate but permanent rain of splattered paint droplets signal nature's ineluctable counterpoise to human scenarios, often involving painfully pivotal events in modern Iranian history, depicted with humor wry and extra-dry.
Pieces of strong clear or white polythene sheeting from the covers of furniture and bedding are often suitable for building poly-propagators (A 31 in Manual 1), or protecting delicate seedlings from rain and wind (C 41).
"The fabric is so delicate....what if it rains?" "Not a problem...you tuck the scarf inside your jacket".
Her celebrated footwork – fast, fierce and controlled – can distil right down to the drilling of a lone woodpecker; it can be as threatening as a military drumbeat, as delicate as a patter of rain.
And while nothing that comes afterward really compares to it, a volley of arrows that falls down like red rain and a delicate swirl of pink petals come delightfully close.
