Product Description
Roger Cuthbert Quilter (1 November 1877 21 September 1953) was a British composer, known particularly for his art songs. His songs, which number over a hundred, often set music to text by William Shakespeare and are a mainstay of the English art songtradition.
Probably his best known work is "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal."
Quilter wrote mostly songs, but there are a few piano pieces, some orchestral pieces and some incidental music to theatrical works. There are a few chamber works, too: these are almost always arrangements of his other pieces.(The best known orchestral piece being "Children's Overture")
Unique among his output, however, is his suite As You Like It, his only orchestral work directly derived from Shakespeare. The play, which also inspired significant concert music by William Walton (indirectly, by way of a 1936 film adaptation) and Gerald Finzi, was presented by London's Old Vic company in October 1921 in a production starring Wilfrid Walter as the Duke, Florence Buckton as Rosalind, and Alan Watts as Orlando, for which Quilter composed and also conducted the music
Its key sections were assembled into a four-movement concert suite that was published the same year.
The work opens with the gently exuberant "Shepherd's Holiday" in syncopated 6/8 time and dominated by strings and elegant horn calls spiked by flourishes on the reeds and winds.
The second movement, "Evening in the Forest," is a lyrical nocturne with exquisite writing for the reeds and strings, and the most understated harp embellishment.
The third movement, "Merry Pranks," is a playful, briskly paced romp for orchestra that seems to quote a folk melody in its opening bars and on the strings, winds, and brass, before taking on a more subdued modernistic and sophisticated form and then returning to its original rustic demeanor.
Finally, the fourth movement, "Country Dance," opens with a flourish on the brass and percussion. The strings, winds, and reeds enter carrying a genial tune that gives way to a middle section that, in a statelier setting, might evoke Elgarian depth, before returning to its fundamentally light, playful mood for a finale.
This is my arrangement for wind dectet/bass of Mvt. 1 Shepherd's Holiday.
Note: Clarinet parts are for clarinet in A. (alt Bb parts provided)
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