Helena Kean - Music and Images

  The English Art Song - A Shakespeare Perspective William Shakespeare loved music and recognised its use as a theatrical tool. Nearly all of his thirty-seven plays contain music of some kind, which he has most skilfully used for dramatic, comic, or atmospheric purposes to great effect. Tragic heroines sing, swan-like, before death; clowns and fools are given the liberty to sing bawdy or controversial lyrics; impassioned suitors serenade in vain; lovers sigh; rogues celebrate the joys of country life; fairies sing lullabies; supernatural spirits cast spells; and villagers entertain with popular songs and ballads. Before wider literacy poems were always sung to communicate, memorise and disseminate the poem. Today Shakespeare’s genius is recognised across the world and the dissemination of his works via music has been very important. For over 400 years composers have been inspired by Shakespeare’s texts, writing operas, ballets, overtures, symphonic poems, musicals, suites, or...

Roger Quilter Roger Cuthbert Quilter was born at No 4 Brunswick Square in Hove, Brighton, on 1st of November 1877. He was the fifth child and third son of Sir William Cuthbert Quilter, 1st Baronet and Lady Mary Ann Quilter, née Bevington. Queen Victoria had bestowed the baronetcy to William, in her Diamond Jubilee year 1897. Roger’s father was a wealthy stockbroker, a businessman, the founder and director of the National Telephone Company, a politician elected as Liberal MP and afterwards Unionist MP for Sudbury, and the landowner of the Bawdsey Manor estate in Suffolk. With his brother Harry, he had invested in an extensive art collection, which became quite famous. William’s appreciation of the arts lay only in the financial gains to be made and the sale of his collection increased the family’s wealth considerably. The family returned to Suffolk in 1882. Despite his enthusiasm for collecting art, Sir William had little interest in the artistic talents of his son. Music as a diversion...

  Sir William Walton One of Britain’s greatest ever composers, was born on the 29th of March 1902 at 93 Werneth Hall Road, Oldham, Lancashire. William Turner Walton’s birthplace was a typical Pennine mill town, characterised by factory chimneys, terraced houses and extremes of wealth and poverty. His determination to escape the drab, grey streets of Oldham, combined with a highly developed self critical awareness produced a fabulous body of work of the highest standard. This shy and reserved, yet inherently romantic Lancastrian, in whom stubborn independence and musical sensitivity were finely blended, would become the leading British musical figure between Vaughan Williams and Britten. His father, Charles Alexander Walton, was the son of an Inland Revenue off icial from Hale in Cheshire. Charles had a fine Bass-baritone voice and was one of first pupils at new Royal Manchester College of Music. He became the organist and choirmaster at St John’s Church, Werneth, for 21 years and s...