Quilter, Roger

Preface

Quilter, Roger – Suite from the incidental music to Shakespeare’s play ‚As you like it’, Op. 21

(b. Hove, 1 November 1887; d. London, 21 September 1953)

Shepherd’s Holiday p.1
Evening in the Forest p.21
Merry Pranks p.29
Country Dance p.60

Preface
Roger Quilter was a quiet, serious child. Son of a wealthy landowner, politician and art collector, he attended a preparatory school in Farnborough and Eton College, though his lack of interest in physical activities was noticed and he was excused some sports so he could concentrate on his musical gifts. He decided to pursue a musical career and applied to enter Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium in Frankfurt-am-Main (now the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst). He became friendly with fellow students Norman O’Neil, Henry Balfour Gardiner, Cyril Scott, and Percy Grainger. Together they became known as the Frankfurt Gang. They all studied composition under Ivan Knorr. But Quilter’s inherent shyness meant that he lived in the shadow of the more extrovert members of the group such as Percy Grainger. Knorr’s overall assessment of Quilter was that he would not succeed in composition, however charmingly he could write, because he lacked conviction. To an extent that remains true except in one area – Roger Quilter is one of the great song-writers, regularly appearing on the programmes of lieder singers of all nationalities. He set the words of more than 40 poets, but his one great love was William Shakespeare, whose poetry provided the basis for some two-dozen songs.

He became seriously ill in 1906 with a series of (probably) auto-immune conditions that would plague him till his death in 1953, and he was medically unfit to serve in the First World War. But it was during recovery from this first illness that he began to write incidental music for the theatre, notably The Merchant of Venice and Where the Rainbow Ends (which ran for a long time at the Savoy Theatre). …

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