Heseltine, Philip (Arnold)
Heseltine, Philip (Arnold)
Heseltine, Philip (Arnold), brilliant English composer and writer on music who used the pen name Peter Warlock; b. London, Oct. 30, 1894; d. (suicide) there, Dec. 17, 1930. He studied at Eton with Colin Taylor (1908–10), in Germany, and at Oxford. A meeting with Delius in France in 1910 influenced him profoundly in the direction of composition, and he adopted a style that was intimately connected with English traditions of the Elizabethan period and yet revealed impressionistic undertones in harmonic writing. Another influence was that of Bernard van Dieren, from whom he absorbed an austerely contrapuntal technique. He publ, all his musical works under his pen name. He was a conscientious objector during World War I. In 1917-18 he was in Ireland, and after the Armistice he returned to London. In 1920 he founded the progressive journal of musical opinion the Sackbut. He wrote criticism and made transcriptions of early English music. Suffering from depression, he committed suicide by gas in his London flat. He ed. (with P. Wilson) 300 early songs, and was co-editor of Oxford Choral Songs and the Oxford Orchestral Series, a collection of early English and Italian dances.
Writings
(all publ, in London): Frederick Delius (1923); Songs of the Garden (1925); The English Ayre (1926); with C. Gray, Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa: Musician and Murderer (1926); ed. with J. Lindsay, j. Harrington: The Metamorphosis of Ajax (1927); Thomas Whythorne (1929); Merry-go-down (1929); EnglishAyres, Elisabethan and Jacobean: A Discourse (1932); Giles Earle his Books (1932).
Works
ORCH.: An Old Song (1917); Serenade for Delius on his 60th Birthday for Strings (1921–22); Capriol, suite for Strings (1926; for Orch., 1928). OTHER: Corpus Christi for Soprano, Baritone, and String Quartet (1919–23); The Curlew, song cycle for Tenor, Flute, English Horn, and String Quartet (1920-21; rev. 1922); 3 Carols for Chorus and Orch. (1923); Sorrow’s Lullaby for Soprano, Baritone, and String Quartet (1927); other choral works and solo songs.
Bibliography
C. Gray, Peter Warlock: A Memoir of P. H. (London, 1934); F. Tomlinson, A Peter Warlock Handbook (2 vols., Rickman-sworth, 1974, 1977); I. Copley, The Music of Peter Warlock: A Critical Survey (London, 1979); M. Pilkington, Gurney, Ireland, Quilter, and Warlock (London, 1989); D. Cox and J. Bishops, eds., Peter Warlock: A Centenary Celebration: The Man-his Music-his World (London, 1994); I. Parrott, The Crying Curlew: Peter Warlock: Family & Influences: Centenary 1994 (Llandysul, Dyfed, 1994); B. Smith, Peter Warlock, The Life of P. H. (Oxford, 1994); B. Collins, Peter Warlock: The Composer (Aldershot, 1996).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire