I’ve only discovered Quilter recently, mostly because there was a book of his art song available at the Allans sale a few weeks ago and I was seduced by the prospect of singing Shakespeare’s poetry.  My friendly salesperson, who is a fellow lover of Purcell and 19th century French opera, eyed my choice with disfavour.  “Well… it’s very… pretty,” he finally said, clearly attempting diplomacy. And so it is…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGZjewK_jJY&w=560&h=315]Actually, what Quilter is, when he chooses to be, is magnificently, utterly, overwhelmingly self-indulgent.  Ian Bostridge actually shows a fair bit of restraint in singing this one.  I don’t, because I tend to feel that the whole point of this sort of music is to over-indulge.  To me, it’s like Chopin and Schubert and Dowland all got together to write something so over-the-top in its gloomy romanticism that you just feel better singing it.  But I do admire Bostridge’s ability to let the music speak for itself.

Which, when you consider it, is totally appropriate – the lyrics for this come from Twelfth Night, and this song is greatly favoured by Orsino, one of the most emotionally self-indulgent characters ever written.  You just know that Orsino would love Quilter’s setting of this music, and would probably listen to it again and again (that strain again, it had a dying fall…), probably with the curtains shut and the lights off in a dark, dark room where he can truly get his goth on.  Because that’s our Orsino, bless him.

And just for fun, here’s a version by counter-tenor Bejun Mehta, taking a very different, and much more romantic, approach than the Bostridge version.  My inner music critic suspects I should like Bostridge’s version more, but I bet Orsino would prefer this one…