The Arnold Song Book Arrangements

Gregg has taken some delightful and well-known songs arranged by Roger Quilter and re-arranged them for the following:

• Voice and Guitar
• Flute or Oboe and Guitar
• Clarinet and Guitar
• Cello and Guitar

Here are the songs included in this collection.  Note that there is one additional song in the voice and guitar arrangement: I Got a Robe (Heav’n, Heav’n)

Selections from the Arnold Book of Old Songs for Voice and Guitar

• Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes English melody, 18th Century
• Over The Mountains Old English melody
• My Lady Greensleeves Old English melody
• Three Poor Mariners Old English melody
• The Ash Grove Old Welsh melody
• Ca’ The Yowes To The Knowes Old Scottish melody
• Ye Banks And Braes Old Scottish melody
• Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms Old Irish melody
• Oh! ’Tis Sweet To Think Old Irish melody

Voice and Guitar

Flute or Oboe and Guitar

Clarinet and Guitar

Cello and Guitar

In 1942 Roger Quilter began composing arrangements of folk songs to send to a favorite nephew, Arnold Guy Vivian, who was serving in the military during World War II. A year later Vivian was listed as missing in action, and a memorial service was held for the young man at the end of the war. Quilter was heartbroken over his nephew’s death. The folk song settings intended as a gift instead became a published memorial; hence the title of the collection.

Quilter’s sources for the songs apparently were varied. It is likely that he made subjective choices in the versions of the core melodies and lyrics, sometimes eliminating some verses. The settings of these melodies are not mere harmonization, but fully composed in the spirit of art song for the recital stage.

Gregg Nestor has selected nine of the sixteen settings best suited for adaptation to voice, other instruments and guitar. They can be successfully mixed and matched and presented as short mini-cycles grouped around their nationalistic heritage, or as encore material for recitals.

I GOT A ROBE (HEAV’N, HEAV’N)

This song only appears in the voice and guitar version.  Roger Quilter arranged this spiritual for the contralto Marian Anderson, and she included it in her début recital at the Wigmore Hall, London, on June 16, 1928, with Quilter accompanying.

The Great Necks Guitar Trio has enchanted audiences across the United States with its whimsical, interactive, and daring performances. Founded by guitarists Scott Borg, Adam Levin, and Matthew Rohde, the trio — through its original madcap arrangements — stretches at the conventions — and at times, the physical limits — of the guitar with what American Record Guide calls “some of the most inventive artistry you are likely to find in today’s guitar world.”

On IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN the critically acclaimed Great Necks guitar trio enchants and excites with their performance of Spanish-influenced works from master composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Arranged and adapted for guitar trio by Gregg Nestor, the unexplored repertoire of five composers cascades across guitar frets in this recording, communicating themes of love, poetry and literature, spanish dance, and the spirit of Spain itself through music. Experience the works of Isaac Albéniz, Maurice Ravel, Enrique Granados, Joaquín Turina, and Manuel de Falla through a new and virtuosic voice.

Impressions of Spain by The Great Necks Guitar Trio

Suite from The Magic Opal – Isaac Albéniz

• Prelude 2:10
• Intermezzo 9:00
• Ballet 3:56

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée – Maurice Ravel

• Chanson romanesque 1:52
• Chanson épique 2:55
• Chanson à boire 1:42

Cinco Pièzas Populares – Enrique Granados

• Añoranza 2:57
• Zambra 5:30
• Zapateado 4:35
• Moresque 3:51
• Miel de la Alcarria 5:50

Poema en forma de Canciones – Joaquín Turina

• Dedicatoria 2:23
• Nunca olvida 1:52
• Cantares 1:40
• Los dos miedos 2:58
• Las locas por amor 1:14

Cuatro Pièzas Españolas – Manuel de Falla

• Aragonesa 3:13
• Cubana 3:55
• Montañesa 4:33
• Andaluza 4:02

Nine Shakespearean Songs by Roger Quilter Arranged for Voice & Guitar

Roger Quilter, (born November 1, 1877, died September 21, 1953) was a breed of composer that has rarely existed after the first decades of the twentieth century: he was overwhelmingly concerned with the art song. His preoccupation with the genre spanned more than fifty years, resulting in roughly 140 songs in total.

He went abroad to study composition with Ivann Knorr in Frankfurt at the Hoch Conservatory. Fellow students there, at different times, included Percy Grainger, Balfour Gardiner, Norman O’Neill and Cyril Scott. Grainger, in particular, became a lifelong friend of Quilter’s.

Quilter valued graceful elegance and a love of words, both qualities that are evident in his songs and his idiomatic phrasing for the voice. The imagery in his work constantly reflects his boyhood countryside of southern England. In general he showed a rather refined literary taste in poetry chosen for his songs, with an inherent nationalist British identification. Quilter’s fluid and distinctive musical style, though occasionally dramatic, is most often infused with a natural, creamy English charm, though he did not compose quickly, and labored over every detail. Most agree that his best work was created rather young in his life, before his mid-forties. Very few composers working in English have matched his achievement of a large body of beloved, relevant, literate repertoire.

Butterworth: Folk Songs from Sussex arranged by Gregg Nestor for voice and guitar.

Butterworth: Folk Songs from Sussex for Voice and Guitar

George Butterworth was of Yorkshire ancestry. His father opposed his intention to pursue a career as a musician, and as a consequence Butterworth was obliged to support himself. He served on the staff of The Times and in 1910 entered the Royal College of Music.

Two years before the Great War (1914-1918) he became friends with composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and expanded his interest in the collection of English folk music and in Morris dancing. He also became active through the encouragement of Cecil Sharp in the English Folk Dance Society and personally collected or notated over 450, often roaming the countryside and with use of an early phonograph recording device. His most famous orchestral works, The Banks of Green Willow, Two English Idylls and A Shopshire Lad are infused with them.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Butterworth joined the British Army as a private and later accepted a commission as a lieutenant. He was awarded the Military Cross but was unfortunately killed by sniper fire at the Battle of the Somme in August of 1916. His remains were never recovered.

Butterworth did not write a great deal of music, and before and during the war he destroyed many works he did not care for, lest he should not return and have the chance to revise them. These eleven Folk-Songs, here adapted for voice and guitar by guitarist Gregg Nestor, are simply and clearly set. They are presented in the order as originally published and can be played as a cycle or individually presented for the concert stage.

Hebräisches Lied und Tanz – for Violin and Guitar

Violinist and composer Efrem Zimbalist (1889-1985) was born in Russia and emigrated to the United States after his American debut in 1911. From 1941-1968, he was Director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.In 1908 the Jewish Folk Music Society was established in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. Initially dedicated to the collection of folklore, the Society rapidly succeeded in creating a body of music by professional composers. Its success was formidable and organized over 154 concerts during the first five years of its activity, publishing more than 80 works of music. Among its stellar figures were composers Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and violinists Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist and Mischa Elman. Even more significantly, its activity proved to the Russian public and the world the existence and vitality of Jewish music.

This beautiful and charming folk – based “Hebraic Song and Dance”, adapted here by guitarist Gregg Nestor for violin and guitar, is the middle movement from a set composed in 1911 by Efrem Zimbalist called “Slavic Dances”.

We are grateful to Dr. Lin He, Associate Professor of Violin, Louisiana State University who contributed to refinements of this edition.

Romanza by Enrique Granados for Violin & Gtr/Cello & Gtr

Composer Enrique Granados, along with Isaac Albéniz, brought modern Spanish music into the home of the avid music lover. Most of Granados’ works are for piano solo, and through them he created a unique style of writing for the [then] modern school of Spanish keyboard music. Many of his works have been successfully arranged for guitar and are among the all time audience favorites in the instrument’s literature.

The origin of this beautiful Romanza is unclear and the manuscript does not list a date of creation. However it is probably circa 1909. The piece has many attributes that reflect Granados’ love of the music of Robert Schumann.

This largely unknown work (originally for violin and piano) is shown in a new and intimate light through the adaptations for violin and guitar as well as cello and guitar by Gregg Nestor, and should prove to be exciting and welcome additions to duo repertoire and chamber ensemble for these combinations.

We are grateful to William Knuth, Assistant Professor of Violin, Setnor School of Music – Syracuse University who contributed to refinements of the violin edition.

We are grateful to Cecilia Palma and Edwin Guevara of Dúo Villa-Lobos who contributed to refinements of the cello edition.