Richard Rodney Bennett: A Good-Night (Score Video)

Gabrieli Conductor: Paul McReesh A Good-Night by Francis Quarles (1592–1644) Close now thine eyes and rest secure; Thy soul is safe enough, thy body sure; He that loves thee, He that keeps And guards thee, never slumbers, never sleeps. The smiling conscience in a sleeping breast Has only peace, has only rest; The music and the mirth of kings Are all but very discords, when she sings; Then close thine eyes and rest secure; No sleep so sweet as thine, no rest so sure. Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012) As one of Britain’s most respected and versatile musicians, Bennett produced over two hundred works for the concert hall, and fifty scores for film and television, as well as having been a writer and pianist of jazz songs for fifty years. Studies with Boulez in the 1950s immersed him in the techniques of the European avant-garde, though he subsequently developed his own distinctive dramato-abstract style. In recent years, he adopted an increasingly tonal idiom. He was knighted for Services to Music in 1998.