from Seven Elizabethan Lyrics Op.12 (1907)

Weep you no more

Brown is my love

Damask Roses

My Life’s Delight

Quilter’s own favourite among the Seven Elizabethan Lyrics was “Weep you no more,” which he wrote first and which he must have found at least worthy of comparison with the Dowland setting of the same words in the Third Book of Ayres. Certainly, it is remarkable for its chaste economy of means: the piano abandons its rocking rhythms only in the last line of each stanza where, as harmonic stability is restored, it joins in rising counterpoint the gently falling vocal line. “Brown is my love” - one of two late additions to the collection written to replace songs the composer had discarded - is even more economical, its first three lines separated from the other three by a piano echo of a short phrase from the vocal line, while the ending offers an expressive recall of the opening. “Damask Roses,” a setting of an anonymous translation of Italian words by Angelo Grillo, is another six-line miniature and is constructed in much the same way, although in this case it is the piano rather than the voice that recalls the opening line after the harmonic diversion towards the end. The other late addition to the collection, “My Life’s delight,” based on words from Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Ayres, is driven by the lover’s impatience, which is reflected in the restless rhythms of the piano part and which progressively expands the expressive scope of the vocal line.

Although Quilter’s favourite interpreter of his songs, Gervase Elwes, was apparently not entirely won over by the Seven Elizabethan Lyrics, he did join the composer in what was probably their first performance of the collection at the Bechstein (later Wigmore) Hall in November 1908.