‘Draw on Sweet Night’ is a film drama by Tony Britten about John Wilbye, considered to be the greatest of the Elizabethan madrigalist composers and starring Mark Arends as Wilbye. A collaboration with the internationally renowned vocal group I Fagiolini (directed by Robert Hollingworth), this sumptuously photographed film is a feast for movie fans and music lovers alike.
The Elizabethan era saw a glorious flowering of English musical and literary creativity, the like of which has never quite been replicated by any other generation. At the heart of all the musical activity, English composers were lapping up the work of the Italian madrigal school and whilst the great William Byrd supped briefly before moving resolutely back to the church, others such as Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes and John Wilbye gorged themselves in the alliance of poetry with single voice contrapuntal ensemble writing. Wilbye, more than anyone, seemed to be able to compose music that is almost tactile in its sensuousness – music that in many ways sounds modern and timeless.
Whilst we know something of Wilbye’s day-to-day life as a musical servant of the Kytson family at Hengrave Hall, we know nothing of his love life. But it is surely inconceivable that someone who wrote with such passion did not express that passion in more physical ways. That at least is composer and filmmaker Tony Britten’s conceit and in following this thread he has allied his modern score with Wilbye’s glorious music to underpin some beautiful performances from an exceptional cast.
