Nino Maudini (Tenor)
The Gershom Parkington Quintet

Well and honourably known not only in his own country, but abroad too, as a composer of many really beautiful songs, Roger Quilter is no less thoroughly at home in composing for the orchestra.

Although the subjects he chooses, and his treatment of them, are in every way as English as the work of any native composer, the great part of his musical education was carried out in Germany, at Frankfort. Iwan Knorr, one of the most distinguished teachers of the generation which has just passed, was his master for composition, and to the very thorough training on which the German schools insist Quilter no doubt owes the ease and certainty with which he deals with the orchestra.

He first came into prominence as a composer of Shakespeare songs; soon after his return to this country, the songs from Twelfth Night and As You Like It aroused wide interest, not only for their finely lyrical qualities, but for the way in which, they captured something of Shakespeare's own English spirit. For the most part settings of the finest English lyrics, his songs have appealed to all the best singers of our time, and the late Gervase Elwes, to name only one distinguished instance of a singer who chose only the best music, was a sincere admirer of Quilter's work.

These Three English Dances, a fine example of his melodious and graceful style, are scored for quite a small orchestra. A comparatively early work, it made its first appearance at a 'Prom' in 1910.