Five Shakespeare Songs

Roger Quilter was educated at Eton before going for advanced composition studies in Frankfurt. Among his mates in the “Frankfurt Group,” as they came to be known, were Cyril Scott and Percy Grainger. Although not widely known today, Quilter produced one of the largest bodies of solo songs in the English language. It was as a song composer that he first earned public recognition, though he also composed light orchestral music and pieces for children.
Quilter selected many of his song texts from the best poets, ranging from Ben Jonson to Byron, Keats, and Shelley. The pieces typify the salon ballads that continued to thrive into the early 20th century. In general, the harmonic language is tonal and romantic, while the melodies are graceful, distinctive, and noted for their responsiveness to the words. The union of lush, broad chords, rhythmic variety, and first-rate poetry calls to mind Gabriel Fauré’s many settings of Verlaine. Moreover, Quilter’s idiomatic writing for keyboard shows the influence of Rachmaninoff, his Russian contemporary and composer of 80 songs in a similar vein.
Tonight we hear five of Quilter’s numerous Shakespeare songs. All five texts are indicated explicitly by Shakespeare as songs to be performed within the various plays. “Sigh No More, Ladies,” from Much Ado About Nothing, paints a sunny and charming mood, which darkens only for a moment at the mention of turning away a fickle lover’s advances. The two stanzas are musically identical. This piece also demonstrates Quilter’s penchant for a quick glance at the subdominant key in his piano postludes, a feature shared by three other songs this evening.
The second piece, “Who is Sylvia” from Two Gentlemen of Verona, seems to make direct reference to Fauré, particularly the melodic shape and modal color of the latter’s chanson “Lydia.” A complementary rhythm between voice and piano maintains a gentle flow without confusion or obfuscation of the text. Quilter’s harmony breathes in deep tones through the pervasive use of 7th- and 9th-chords.
“It was a Lover and his Lass,” from the final act of As You Like It, opens with the same spirit as “Sigh No More, Ladies.” The piano prelude puts forth a mood of carefree joy with tripping turn figures in a treble register. The song contains a variety of textures and affects, and relies heavily on the performer’s sense of rubato. Voice and piano occasionally take turns with melodic snippets, and the accompaniment uses a high pedal tone to nicely imitate bells during the refrain “When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.” This piece typifies a recurrent structural principle in Quilter’s songs: strophic musical setting unites stanzas 1, 2, and 4 to the same music, whereas the 3rd stanza provides a contrasting affect.
In opposition to strophic songs, we might place the through-composed design of “Take, O Take Those Lips Away,” from Measure for Measure. The song is brief, poignant, and one of Quilter’s finest. A simple tonal structure supports the opening quatrain, with a move from the home key to the dominant twice unfolded. With the text “But my kisses…” Quilter makes an unexpected harmonic shift in order to highlight the final couplet and the central idea: parting from love is always hard and always inconclusive.
The set closes with the bustling energy of “Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain” from Twelfth Night. In structure the song recalls the strophic design of “It was a Lover and his Lass,” and again the 3rd stanza becomes a moment of musical contrast. Where the outer stanzas wear a brave face, the 3rd looks inward, sounding both darker and more agitated. The 4th stanza restores the optimistic tone before closing, as many of Shakespeare’s plays do. This song shows Quilter equally at home in musical depictions of sunny optimism as with the more melancholic side of the Bard’s poetry.

(c) Jason Stell