Roger Quilter received his primary education at Eton College, England, and then went on to study with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. Quilter began his song-writing career with his Songs of the Sea, four songs to words of his own, which was performed in London in 1900. Within just a few years major singers were including his songs in their recitals. Notable among these was Gervase Elwas, whom Quilter accompanied in many song recitals and for whose voice he wrote many works including the songs of Op. 3 and Op. 8. Regarding Elwas, Quilter writes: "I could have never written in quite the same way if I had not known Gervase."

Although Quilter composed a variety of materials including incidental music for Shakespeare's play As You Like It (1922) and the popular children's play Where the Rainbow Ends (1911), he is known principally for his song-writing. He is particularly noted for his fine settings of Shakespeare's poems, and some of his best songs are these as well as settings of other established English poets including the Elizabethans, Herrick, Blake, Shelley and Tennyson.

Central to Quilter's song style is his melodic gift, with harmonic elements skillfully woven into the overall texture, sometimes enriched, but never intruding on the interpretive sensibilities. Quilter's melodic setting of text is always intuitively correct, highlighting the heart of the poem with expressive harmony and melodies that seem to arise fresh made in the moment. His songs reflect an Edwardian age and are considered by some to be a peak in the English tradition of decorous romanticism, somewhat conservative for his time, but with a distinctive melodic flavor and always a refined taste in his choice of text.

Copyright © 2005 Amelia Seyssel

Ravel was born in the French Pyrenees to a Swiss father and a Basque mother, but moved to Paris when he was an infant, beginning his piano studies there at the age of seven and studying at the Conservatoire from 1889 to 1904, including composition with Fauré. He never married and accepted almost no pupils (a notable exception being Ralph Vaughan Williams for 3 months), devoting his time to composition. Ravel was noted particularly for his genius at orchestration, his masterpieces being the well-known Bolero and his ballet Daphnis et Chloé, and for his great innovations in writing for the pianoforte.

The number of Ravel's songs is small when compared to his total output: 39 in all, eleven of which are arrangements and harmonizations of folk and traditional songs adapted with notable originality and genius. His compositions are often classified with Debussy's, but there are more differences than similarities, Ravel's writing showing more respect for classical forms than Debussy and consistently reflecting an extreme clarity of thought requiring a fastidiousness of execution. In his songs, Ravel preferred free verse to metered poetry, believing that regular verse restricted the musical interpretation. His piano accompaniments tend to be difficult and virtuosic and often provide the main musical interest while beautifully illuminating the melody and text. He wrote elegant and subtle melodies incorporating wit and harmonic richness balanced with a sense of flow. Driving rhythms, particularly in the piano accompaniments, along with dissonant harmonies and 'luxuriance of exotic colors' are also characteristic of Ravel's songs.

Copyright © 2005 Amelia Seyssel

Born in Sagunto, near Valencia in Spain, Rodrigo was blinded at age 5 as a result of diphtheria. He showed an early affinity for music, beginning his musical studies in Valencia with Antich, Gomá and Chávarri. By 1922 he was composing, premiering his first orchestral work, Juglares, in Valencia in 1924. In 1927 Rodrigo moved to Paris and began studies with Paul Dukas at the Schola Cantorum, then André Pirro at the Sorbonne and Maurice Emmanuel at the Conservatoire; Dukas considered Rodrigo one of his most promising students. During this time in Paris he became active with a group of Spanish composers also living there which included Turina, Albéniz, Granados and Falla. Falla in particular encouraged Rodrigo to incorporate Spanish elements into his compositions. From 1927 to the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, Rodrigo continued to reside principally in France and Germany, returning briefly to Spain in 1933 to marry, and in 1934 to accept a professorship in the Colegio de Ciegos (School for the Blind) in Madrid from which he almost immediately acquired a fellowship and returned to Paris. He returned finally to Spain and settled in Madrid in the summer of 1939. By this time, Rodrigo was already an established composer with a style that included nationalist elements, "neoclassical forms, a harmonic and orchestral simplicity..., and an easy but attractive sonority." The work for which he is most famous, the Concierto de Aranjuez, was written in Paris during 1938-39. In 1947 Rodrigo was named the Manuel de Falla Professor of Music of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Madrid. In 1954, Rodrigo composed his other famous concerto for guitar and orchestra, Fantasía para un gentilhombre, based on a theme by Gaspar Sanz (c.1640-c.1710). His other well-known work, the Cuatro madrigales amatorios for voice and piano (1947), also drew on historical material for its inspiration. Although his creative activities slowed after the 1960's, Rodrigo continued to compose until a year before his death in 1999. During the latter half of his life, he was the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, in recognition of his lifetime contribution to the music of Spain.

Rodrigo wrote many songs, written mostly in the traditional Spanish style and utilizing dance rhythms, folk material and the lyric plaintiveness of the Moorish and Gypsy melodies. Like Turina, Rodrigo's style matured very early in his career and remained with little development or deviation throughout his career. His was a somewhat conservative Spanish idiom, but with a distinct personality and an immediately identifiable style. Rodrigo himself had a modest outlook regarding his own artistic contribution writing: "Even though my glass may be small, I still drink from my own glass."

Copyright © 2005 Amelia Seyssel

Born in the fishing port of Villanueva y Geltrú about 30 miles south of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain, Eduard Toldrá was a child prodigy with the violin. His father, seeing his early talent, relocated the entire family to Barcelona in order to provide a better setting for his son's tremendous talents. In 1906, at eleven years old, Toldrá entered the Escuela Municipal de Música in Barcelona, studying violin with Gálvez and composition with Nicolau, as well as playing in various orchestras. Three years later, at age 14, he created a trio, and in 1911 (at 16 years old), a quartet – the Cuarteto Renacimiento (performing from 1911-1921). Both of these groups, trio and quartet, became Toldrá's primary avenues for furthering his virtuosic career. The Cuarteto Renacimiento also filled a void in Barcelona's musical life at a time when the political environment actively suppressed any regional leanings, particularly in Catalonia. Under the political atmosphere of the time, musicians such as Toldrá, who pointedly involved himself in the purely Catalan 'Noucentisme' cultural movement of the time, were marginalized in terms of the larger musical world of the Spanish peninsula. This fact, combined with the major upheavals of the two World Wars and the Spanish Civil War, resulted in a rather provincial career for Toldrá. Although valued in his own Catalonia, he is not very well known outside that area of the world.

Toldrá's compositions were generally composed in response to an outside stimulus, such as a competition or a prize; they were not his primary contributions to the musical arena. However, those pieces that he did write are generally very beautiful and are now beginning to be appreciated by a wider international audience. His contributions to the song literature, although small, shows a refined talent and at times an exquisite musical sensibility.

The Catalan 'Noucentisme' movement to which Toldrá subscribed arose both as a reaction against the avant-garde and as a kind of regional renaissance movement which played a major role in reviving and preserving Catalan culture and language. As such, language – particularly poetry – was its primary avenue of expression. All of Toldrá's compositions, instrumental as well as vocal, find their initial impetus in poetry: a poem, in whole or in part, was the inevitable 'source' of Toldrá's inspiration for the music he composed. His songs lean toward the romantic, influenced by Debussy, but choose a refined and accurate musical language that borrows harmonic ideas from his Catalan homeland. Toldrá's taste in poetry is impeccable whether drawing inspiration from well-established Spanish poets, from old folk songs, or from contemporary Catalan poets, notably including Josep Carner, called the "prince of Catalan poets" and an outstanding poetic representative of 'Noucentisme' sensibilities.

Copyright © 2008 Amelia Seyssel

One of the leaders of the 20th century revival of English music, Ralph Vaughan Williams began his music studies as a child, studying piano and violin. He studied at Cambridge University and the Royal Conservatory of Music with various teachers including composition with Parry and Charles Wood. In 1897 he studied with Max Bruch in Berlin, and took his Mus.D. from Cambridge in 1901. In 1908 Vaughan Williams spent time in Paris with Ravel learning techniques of modern orchestration that emphasized color. During this time he was also actively involved, along with Cecil Sharp and Gustav Holst, in the collection of English folk song. Vaughan Williams's compositions reflect a solid grounding in the English folk song tradition combined with modern harmony, counterpoint and instrumentation.

Vaughan Williams is described as one of the most important British composers of the 20th century. He wrote songs throughout his composing career including more than 150 art songs, arrangements, part songs, unison songs, and hymn tunes. Although he supposedly disliked the piano, his songs demonstrate his ability to compose exceedingly well at it. He also composed five operas, choral music, film music and numerous orchestral works. His harmonies display a 'distinctly modern treatment' while his mature songs favor melodies that are energetic, yet softened by melismatic passages. He was gifted at defining simple, yet aesthetically appealing settings of text and, in his songs, his melodies frequently predominate and outshine his accompaniments. His style is distinctively personal, combining the insights of his studies in English folk music with the strength of his own personality: "the modalities of the Tudor era with the sparkling polytonalities of the modern age."

Copyright © 2005 Amelia Seyssel

Peter Warlock has been called one of the most gifted songwriters of the century and one of the most colorful talents in English 20th-century music. Raised with no formal musical education, his love of music was noted in preparatory school and was additionally fostered at Eton College. As a composer, he was essentially self-taught. Warlock was a distinguished editor and transcriber of music from the Elizabethan Era (with 570 published items of Elizabethan and Jacobean music) as well as editor, music critic, and author of nine books and 73 articles. His meeting with the French composer Frederick Delius in 1910 was the catalyst that inspired him towards music composition and resulted in a lifelong friendship between the two men. In 1916, Warlock met Anglo-Dutch composer Bernard von Dieren who influenced him towards a more mature contrapuntal style.

Often described as 'an Elizabethan born out of his time,' Warlock's compositions are distinctively his own. His songs seem to combine the spirit of Elizabethan music with impressionistic harmonic writing. Delius's influences are seen in Warlock's lyricism and "drooping chromatic harmonies," while Warlock's contrapuntal chromaticism derive from his association with von Dieren. Much of the time Warlock's solo song-settings are of Elizabethan poets and generally portray two contrasting moods: an extroverted joviality or a 'meditative lyricism.' Warlock's compositions demonstrate a skill, sensitivity and wit inevitably coupled with fine poetry. In all cases, he had not only a gift for melody, but also for brilliant piano writing, making many of his songs as much a duet for voice and piano as the songs of Hugo Wolf.

Copyright © 2005 Amelia Seyssel