| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this document is to promote and assist the study and informed performance of lesser-known song settings of Shakespeare’s poem, “It was a Lover and His Lass.” The document will consist of a brief examination of Shakespeare, an analysis of the poetry, and a comparative analysis of settings by the following composers: Hubert Parry, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, and Peter Warlock.
These four composers of the Romantic Era and Post Romantic Era were all members of a great nationalist movement in England around 1900 known as the English Musical Renaissance. The English Musical Renaissance was an conscious effort by composers in England to improve English song, because unlike Germany and France, England made little progress musically during the Romantic Era. The primary stylistic traits used to analyze each composer's composition in this dissertation will be discussed in their historical accounts. These accounts with consist of their roles in the English Musical Renaissance and discussions of their life and training. Parry was a scholar who founded the English Musical Renaissance and attempted to bring the traditions of the Lied to England. Ralph Vaughan Williams, Parry's student, reached back to England's folk traditions and style to further lead the English Musical Renaissance. Roger Quilter applied his own unique melodic style and rhythm to revive the dying ballad for the common singer and indirectly strengthened passion for song in England. And Peter Warlock, along with a group of nationalist English composers, used the influences of the Post Romantic composers, Delius and Quilter, in combination with Elizabethan Lute song to officially establish a new style of English song and complete what Parry had started.
The analyses will also take into account the influences of Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It, and the tradition that Shakespeare wrote the poem “It was a Lover and his Lass” for that play and asked Thomas Morley to set the text to music to be performed in Act 5, Scene 3 of the play. Morley’s version of “It was a Lover and His Lass” has been made the most popular version of the song due to his traditional connection with Shakespeare and the song’s connection with the play. These influences are seen in every composition of it was a “Lover and His Lass” in this study. The study will also include an account of Shakespeare, how to interpret his realism, and the romanticizing of Shakespeare through the event know as the Great Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769. This made “It was a Lover and His Lass” even more suitable for the composers in this study.
Each analysis will apply the information in the historical account to each composer's composition of the text using musical examples in comparative analysis. The document does not conduct a note by note or chord by chord analysis of each song but instead focuses on those elements relevant to the poetry, the composers, their historical accounts, at any other pertinent information. | en_US |
