Drink to me only with thine eyes (Anon/Quilter) - from CDA66878 - Hyperion Records

Track(s) taken from CDA66878

The song ‘Drink to me only’ goes back long before Victorian balladry and must be one of the most famous of all British songs. The words appeared in 1716 in a collection of Ben Jonson’s poems called ‘The Forest’, and its musical setting to an old English air can be traced back at least to around 1780. The present arrangement of that traditional air is by Roger Quilter.

View sleeve notes/artwork (PDF)

Recording details: February 1996
Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell & Julian Millard
Release date: September 1996
Total duration: 2 minutes 28 seconds

Drink to me only with thine eyes

composer

Anonymous

traditional air

arranger

Roger Quilter (1877-1953)

Old English Popular Songs, pub. 1921

author of text

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

The Forest

John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Malcolm Martineau (piano)