The Choral Music of Peter Warlock - Volume 5

Another fantastic collection of songs by Peter Warlock set for 2 and 3-part Upper Voices with Piano accompaniment. Warlock was a treasure of British song-writing he composed and arranged a good deal of Choral music during his lifetime though little was originally conceived for ladies’ choirs. These six songs were completed between 1918 and 1928 a period in which parlour piano was out of fashion due to the technologies that were being introduced yet there was demand for part-songs and this was an opening for Warlock who re-wrote earlier solos. Magical and poetic Warlock has a way with words phrasing and melody and these songs are sure to delightsingers players and audiences.

The fourth book in a fabulous series that presents the best of Peter Warlock’s Choral Music. Warlock has been described as the Carollist of the last century and is a treasure of British song-writing. This volume contains a fantastic collection of some of his best and most loved Carols. Eight Carols set for SATB mixed choir and a Piano accompaniment for rehearsal. Warlock has such a way with words phrasing and melody that these songs are sure to delight singers players and audiences.

In this seventh volume of Warlock’s Choral works there is a mixture of work. The Full Heart sets poetry of Warlock’s friend Robert Nicholas and is written for eight-part Chorus with a Soprano solo. A Cornish Christmas Carol is one of two Cornish carols Warlock wrote. This one is for Chorus SATB with SA divisi and a solo Soprano moment toward the end. Corpus Christi written in 1919 requires contrAlto solo and Tenor solo from the choir with an extremely demanding part for the contrAltos. The three dirges All the Flowers of Spring Call for the Robin Redbreast and The Wren and The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi were originally published as a set but are performedseparately. The first is for mixed Chorus SATB the second SSAA and the third TTBB with a first Tenor line of almost unequalled challenge.Composer writer and musical scholar Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) was active in the early decades of the twentieth century when he distinguished himself by his rediscovery and transcription of early English music his writing on Delius Gesualdo and other many other musicians and for his Choral works and songs among them the carol Bethlehem Down.

The sixth book in a fabulous series that presents the best of Peter Warlock’s Choral Music. This volume contains a fantastic collection of his most popular and most loved songs. Volume six contains eight full songs set for Unison Voices with Piano accompaniment. Warlock has such a way with words phrasing and melody that these songs are sure to delight singers players and audiences.

A beautiful slow dignified and evocative carol for mixed choir. The words are from a poem by Bruce Blunt and have been set to music by Peter Warlock. Arrangement for SATB with a Piano accompaniment included for rehearsal purposes though this piece should be performed as a choir without accompaniment wherever possible.

A 2-part carol taken from Peter Warlock's Capriol Suite and arranged by Maurice Jacobson with text by Dom Gregory Murray.

Corpus Christi is an anonymous Middle English Carol first written down c.1500. It was re-worked as a carol for Soprano and Tenor Soloists with SATB chorus by Peter Walock (1894-1930) in 1919. It wasdedicated to Thomas Strong later Bishop of Oxford who had been Dean of Christ Church College during Warlock's brief time studying there and who is better known for encouraging William Walton's musicalcareer. While he is best remembered for his scandalous lifestyle and his large-scale Capriol Suite the Corpus Christi carol ranks alongside Bethlehem Down as one ofWarlock's most sensitive and beautiful creations.

The Curlew completed in 1922 is the acknowledged masterpiece of Peter Warlock’s compositional career a work of sensitivity inventiveness and of desolation of spirit appropriate to Yeats’ poetry of unfulfilled love. Although scored in five sections the composer insisted that the work was a chamber piece in one continuous movement. The score includes detailed notes on the motifs and structure of the work most useful for students and performers. There are many demanding moments throughout the work with particular pathos in the exposed Vocal line of the final section.Composer writer and musical scholar Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) was active in the early decades ofthe twentieth century when he distinguished himself by his rediscovery and transcription of early English music his writing on Delius Gesualdo and other many other musicians and for his Choral works and songs among them the carol Bethlehem Down.

Two SATB arrangements of Pieds En L'Air from Warlock's Capriol the first being a slumersome lullaby and the second an optimistic springtime song.Tomlinson's first arrangement Hush My Child was intended to take advantage of Warlock's sumptuous harmonies in the original string orchestra version of Pieds En L'Air but with voices. This setting was then shown to John Bishop who responded by creating the text Welcome The Spring to provide a more optimistic and forward-looking interpretation of the same piece.Both versions are featured in this edition leaving the choice to the singers and choral leaders themselves!

The Capriol Carol is a magical union of the treasured early English lyric ‘This enders night’ and the haunting tune of the ‘Pieds-en-l’air’ from Peter Warlock’s much-loved Capriol Suite. Church choirs comfortable with part-singing will find it easily within their grasp but it will be no less effective when performed by larger choral groups. A simple yet telling organ part adds to the effect of this delightful new setting which deserves a permanent place in the Advent and Christmas repertoire.

The Five Lesser Joys of Mary begins with a conventional Nativity scene - the ox and the ass for warmth the star the Wise Men - to verses attributed by Warlock to one Daniel Lawrence Kelleher editor of Christmas Carols (No. 18 in the second series of Augustan Books of English Poetry) where the anonymous verses were published. The fourth stanza recounts Jesus 'Confounding the doctors the poor little Child ' while the fifth carries us to Calvary and a singularly lame conclusion as Mary 'Saw Jesus droop over and lie very still She thought of the good times they had long ago When He'd droop in her arms and she'd singhusheenlo.'Strophically composed with small variations Warlock's tenderness seems generic. eltine.

Remember Bethlehem was conceived after a conversation on the works of the late story-telling songsmith Jake Thackray. Thackray’s sometimes bawdy sometimes satirical and often hilarious lyrics are delivered in a lugubrious baritone and underpinned by a strong Yorkshire accent that led him to be dubbed the “North Country Noel Coward”. In his Remember Bethlehem heshows a more tender side and tells a story devoid of expletives and cutting social commentary of a “shabby little country girl” completely broken by the ardours of her journey arriving in Bethlehem as a distrusted foreigner to give birth to baby boy called Jesus. Whatstruck and moved me most about Thackray’s telling of the Nativity Narrative is the way he normalizes Mary. Rather than retrospectively beatifying her - telling her story full in the knowledge of the extraordinary thing she did (as most nativity stories do) – Thackray’s portrayal of her as young afraid and cold makes her achievement all the more astonishing. Indeed so out-of-the-ordinary is the gift given by this apparently ordinary girl that no one and no thing can ever forget it: “Even the stony old hills […] your shaggy old trees […] the sulky old sun Remembers Bethlehem.” My carol of the same name adapts a similar approach to telling Mary’s story. Musically I have only thinly veiled my affection for Peter Warlock’s miniature masterpiece Bethlehem Down and evidence of this can be seen not only in the choice of key triple metre and strophic setting but also in the resemblance of some of the cadential figures. A final strand of influence comes once more from Yorkshire and specifically Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. My wife is a literature scholar and pointed out to me the parallels between Mary’s plight in Thackray’s story and a scene from the novel in which Jane is lost up on the moors. Through her distrust of man she feels outcast and

Par WARLOCK PETER. / Répertoire / Ténor, Flûte Traversière Cor Anglais et Quatuor à

For SATB chorus unaccompanied lyrics from text by Sloane MS. 2593 (15th century).