View source for Roger Quilter

{{Short description|English composer (1877–1953)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{EngvarB|date=January 2020}}
[[File:Roger Quilter ca. 1922.png|thumb|Roger Quilter {{c.|1922}}]]
'''Roger Cuthbert Quilter''' (1 November 1877 – 21 September 1953) was a British composer, known particularly for his [[art song]]s. His songs, which number over a hundred, often set music to text by [[William Shakespeare]] and are a mainstay of the [[English art song]] tradition.

== Biography ==
[[File:Blue plaque for Roger Quilter in Hove..JPG|thumb|Blue plaque for Roger Quilter in Hove]]
Quilter was born in [[Hove]], Sussex;<ref>{{cite book|last=Middleton|first=Judy|year=2001|title=Brunswick Town}}{{full citation needed|date=January 2024|reason=No book with this title can be found; the web page 'Brunswick Town, Hove' at http://hovehistory.blogspot.com/2015/11/brunswick-town-hove.html doesn't mention Quilter.}}</ref> a commemorative [[blue plaque]] is on the house at 4 Brunswick Square.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://portsladehistory.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/brunswick-squares-famous-residents.html|title=Hove, Portslade and Brighton in the Past|website=Portsladehistory.blogspot.com|access-date=22 July 2020}}</ref> He was a younger son of [[William Quilter|Sir William Quilter, 1st Baronet]], a wealthy noted landowner, politician and [[art collector]].

Roger Quilter was educated first in the preparatory school at [[Farnborough, Hampshire|Farnborough]]. He then moved to [[Eton College]] and later became a fellow-student of [[Percy Grainger]], [[Cyril Scott]] and [[H. Balfour Gardiner]] at the [[Hoch Conservatory]] in Frankfurt, where he studied for almost five years under the guidance of the German professor of composition [[Iwan Knorr]].<ref name="Hold">Hold, Trevor,{{cite web |url=http://www.btinternet.com/~j.benton/roger_quilterV1.htm |title=Roger Quilter – Volume 1 |access-date=30 May 2021 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121011000417/http://www.btinternet.com/~j.benton/roger_quilterV1.htm |archive-date=11 October 2012}}</ref> Quilter belonged to the [[Frankfurt Group]], a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s.<ref name="Hold"/>

His reputation in England rests largely on his songs and on his [[light music]] for band trios, such as his ''Children's Overture'', with its interwoven [[nursery rhyme]] tunes, and a suite of music for the play ''[[Where the Rainbow Ends]]''. He is noted as an influence on several English composers, including [[Peter Warlock]].<ref name=lang/>

Quilter enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with the tenor [[Gervase Elwes]] until the latter's death in 1921. In November 1936, Quilter's opera ''Julia'' was presented at Covent Garden by the British Music Drama Opera Company under the direction of [[Vladimir Rosing]].<ref name="langfield"/> It ran for only seven performances. Heavily revised, it was later published as ''Love at the Inn''.<ref>[http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_l/love_at_the_inn.htm ''Love at the Inn'', from The Guide to Musical Theatre]</ref>

As a gay man during the late 19th century, it was difficult to cope with the pressures that were imposed upon him by his hidden homosexuality,<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/959966 Stephen Banfield. 'Roger Quilter: A Centenary Note'], in ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 118 No. 1617, November 1977, pp. 903-906</ref> and he struggled with mental illness after the loss of his nephew [[Arnold Guy Vivian]] during [[World War II]].<ref name="langfield">{{Cite book |first=Valerie |last=Langfield |title=Roger Quilter: His Life and Music |url=https://boydellandbrewer.com/9780851158716/roger-quilter/|publisher=Boydell & Brewer |date=April 2002 |access-date=30 May 2021|isbn=978-0851158716}}{{page needed|date=January 2024}}</ref>

He died at his home on 21 September 1953, in [[St John's Wood]], London, a few months after celebrations to mark his 75th birthday, and was buried in the family vault at St Mary's Church, [[Bawdsey]], Suffolk.<ref name="Hold"/>

== Songs ==
Roger Quilter's output of songs, more than one hundred in total, added to the canon of [[English art song]] that is still sung today. According to Valerie Langfield, his style "was indisputably English" despite his German training, and once matured around 1905, did not develop further. Shakespeare, Herrick, and Shelley were his favoured poets.<ref name=lang>{{cite Grove|last=Langfield|first=Valerie|id=22702|title=Quilter, Roger (Cuthbert)|year=2013}}</ref> Among the most popular are "Love's Philosophy", "Fair House of Joy", "Come Away Death", "Go, Lovely Rose", "Weep You No More", "By the Sea", and his setting of ''[[O Mistress Mine]]''. Quilter's setting of verses from the Tennyson poem "[[Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal]]" is one of his earliest songs but is nonetheless characteristic of the later, mature style.

Of his seventeen Shakespeare settings, the ''Three Shakespeare Songs'' (1905, revised 1906) are perhaps the most successful: commenting on ''O Mistress Mine'' Peter Warlock said the song is "one of the very few things that very simply send me into ecstasies every time I play it".<ref name=pilk>[https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/notes/66878-B.pdf Pilkington, Michael. Notes to Hyperion CD A66878 (1996)]</ref> While a collection rather than a true song cycle, ''Seven Elizabethan Lyrics'' is "probably the best single volume of songs the composer ever produced", according to Michael Pilkington, and includes the still regularly performed "Fair House of Joy" as its final song.<ref name=pilk/>

But perhaps his most widely known work is ''Non Nobis, Domine'' (1934). This was written for the Pageant of Parliament at the [[Royal Albert Hall]] July 1934, to a text by [[Rudyard Kipling]], and has become the school song or school hymn of many girls' schools in the English-speaking world. He also published the ''[[Arnold Book of Old Songs]]'', a collection of 16 folk and traditional songs from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and France to new accompaniments, dedicated to his nephew Arnold Guy Vivian.<ref>{{IMSLP|work=The Arnold Book of Old Songs (Quilter, Roger)|cname=''The Arnold Book of Old Songs'' (Quilter)}}</ref>

===Recordings===
Recorded collections of Quilter songs include discs by [[Benjamin Luxon]] and David Willison,<ref>[https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/quilter-songs-0 ''Quilter Songs'' Chandos CHAN8782] (1990), reviewed by ''Gramophone'', 3/1990</ref> Charlotte de Rothschild and Adrian Farmer,<ref>[https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Nov/Quilter_songs_NI5930.htm ''The Songs of Roger Quilter'', Nimbus NI5930] (2014), reviewed by ''MusicWeb International''</ref> and [[James Gilchrist (tenor)|James Gilchrist]] and Anna Tilbrook.<ref>[https://musicwebinternational.com/2024/08/quilter-go-lovely-rose-chandos/ ''Go Lovely Rose: Songs of Roger Quilter'', Chandos CHAN20322] (2024), reviewed by ''MusicWeb International''</ref>  Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow have issued a four disc set of the complete songs.<ref>[https://stonerecords.co.uk/album/the-complete-quilter-songbook-volume-1/ ''The Complete Quilter Songbook'', Stone Records]</ref> There are also collections of the folk song arrangements and part songs for women's voices.<ref>[https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/june05/Quilter_8557495.htm English Song Series, NAXOS 8.557495 (2005)]</ref> [[David Owen Norris]] has recorded the solo piano music.<ref>''Roger Quilter: Complete Piano Music'', EM Records EM CD002 (2011)</ref>

== Selected works ==
By date of composition, not publication:
* ''Four Songs of the Sea'', [[Opus number|Op.]] 1 (1901) (revised, and omitting first song, as ''Three Songs of the Sea'') (1911)
* ''Four Songs of Mirza Schaffy'' Op. 2 (1903) (revised 1911)
* ''Three Shakespeare Songs'', Op. 6 (1905)
* ''To Julia'', Op. 8 (texts of [[Robert Herrick (poet)|Robert Herrick]]) (1905)
* ''Seven Elizabethan Lyrics'', Op. 12 (1908)
* ''Three English Dances'', Op. 11 (1910)
* ''Three Studies for Piano'', Op. 4 (1910)
* ''[[Where the Rainbow Ends]]'' ([[incidental music]]) (1911)
* ''Four Child Songs'', Op. 5 (1914) (revised 1945)
* ''A Children's Overture'' (1914)
* ''Three Pastoral Songs'', Op. 22 (1920)
* ''Five Shakespeare Songs'', Op. 23 (1921)
* ''The Fuchsia Tree'', Op. 25, No. 2 (1923)<ref>Smythe, David K., [http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=17115 ''The Fuchsia Tree''], The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive, {{retrieved|access-date=6 June 2012}}</ref>
* ''Five Jacobean Lyrics'', Op. 28 (1926)
* ''Five English Love Lyrics'', Op. 24 (1922–28)
* ''Four Shakespeare Songs'', Op. 30 (1933)
* ''Julia'', light opera (1936) (includes the concert waltz "Rosme" and the [[gavotte]] "In Georgian Days"). Revised as ''Love at the Inn'' (1940)
* ''[[Arnold Book of Old Songs]]'' (1921, 1942, pub. 1950)

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==
* [[Stephen Banfield|Banfield, Stephen]] (1985). [https://books.google.com/books?id=zWPvwuOGA4EC ''Sensibility and English Song''], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, {{ISBN|978-0521379441}}
* Harrison, Nicola (2016). [http://www.comptonpublishing.co.uk/the-wordsmiths-guide-roger-quilter.php ''The Wordsmith's Guide to English Song: The Songs of Roger Quilter''], Compton Publishing, {{ISBN|978-1909082083}}
* [[Trevor Hold|Hold, Trevor]] (1976 and 1996). ''The Walled in Garden: The Songs of Roger Quilter'', Thames Publishing, {{ISBN|978-0905210995}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Roger Quilter}}
* [http://valerielangfield.co.uk/Roger_Quilter.html "Roger Quilter"], Valerie Langfield
* {{IMSLP|id=Quilter, Roger (Cuthbert)}}
* {{ChoralWiki}}
* {{NPG name}}

{{portal bar|Classical music|Opera|Biography}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Quilter, Roger}}
[[Category:1877 births]]
[[Category:1953 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century British LGBTQ people]]
[[Category:20th-century English LGBTQ people]]
[[Category:20th-century English male musicians]]
[[Category:20th-century English classical composers]]
[[Category:British gay musicians]]
[[Category:British LGBTQ composers]]
[[Category:British light music composers]]
[[Category:British male classical composers]]
[[Category:Gay composers]]
[[Category:Hoch Conservatory alumni]]
[[Category:LGBTQ classical composers]]
[[Category:Musicians from Sussex]]
[[Category:People educated at Eton College]]
[[Category:People from Hove]]
[[Category:Pupils of Iwan Knorr]]
[[Category:Younger sons of baronets]]