Lambert Conducts Warlock and Bliss

Peter Warlock

Here are additional English compositions conducted by the supreme talent Constant Lambert - songs by Peter Warlock and a neglected march by Arthur Bliss.

Warlock - The Curlew and Two Songs

The playful fellow you see at right is the 20th century English composer Peter Warlock. While he did have a jolly side - heard in some of his songs - a dark side was expressed both in his art and very likely in his death.

Here is what I wrote about him years ago: "Peter Warlock, a pseudonym for Philip Heseltine, mainly wrote songs during his short life, which ended in what is most likely suicide at age 36. He is lightly regarded as a composer - possibly because he was a miniaturist, but his songs are of a very high standard. The Curlew cycle is his masterpiece, his music fitting extraordinary well to Yeats' bleak poetry. ('No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind; the boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.') 

"But the composer responds just as strongly to joyful verse such as the Shakespeare setting 'Pretty Ring Time.' This dual aspect of Heseltine's work is sometimes thought to express the dual Heseltine/Warlock identity."

Composer-conductor Constant Lambert was a close friend of Warlock during the 1920s. He led this performance of The Curlew in March 1931, a few months after Warlock's death. The performers included the International String Quartet, the baritone John Armstrong, and Terence McDonagh, who was to begin a long career with English ensembles by joining the new BBC Symphony at age 22. He takes the important English horn part in this work.

John Armstrong has a prominent, rapid vibrato that can be distracting, but is otherwise good as the vocal soloist.

The Curlew set was issued by the National Gramophonic Society, a subscription company that would soon close shop after making first recordings of many works, including this one, I believe. Thanks to my friend Nick Morgan for information on this release. You can find his research on this pioneering organization here. This transfer may well have originated with Nick, although I did find it on Internet Archive, and clean it up for presentation at this time.

You can find the second recording of The Curlew, with Alexander Young and the Sebastian String Quartet, here.

The National Gramophonic Society set also includes two other songs by Warlock - "Sleep," with words by Beaumont and Fletcher, and "Chop Cherry," from a work by George Peele.

 Bliss - March - The Phoenix (Homage to France)

Arthur Bliss and Constant Lambert preparing the ballet
Miracle in the Gorbals in 1944

Lambert also was friends with another important composer, Arthur Bliss. In 1944 he began preparing the Sadler's Wells Ballet production of Bliss's contemporary work, Miracle in the Gorbals. (Lambert's 1946 recording of the score can be found here.)

Also in 1944, Bliss was working on one of his stirring marches, The Phoenix (Homage to France). Lambert conducted the first recording, also in 1946, with the Philharmonia Orchestra. This piece is reminiscent of the composer's march theme from the film Things to Come, and looked forward to his superb Welcome the Queen of 1954.

LINK

A Quartet for King Charles

After my recent tribute to Queen Elizabeth, I thought it only right to  post something associated with King Charles. There's nothing yet for the newly crowned Charles III, so I chose music associated with his namesake Charles II (1630-85).

The composition is by Matthew Locke (c1621-77), a court composer for Charles II. He is said to have presented the subject of today's post, the Consort of ffowre Parts, Suite VI in G, along with its companion suites to Charles sometime after 1660.

But before I go any further, please let me acknowledge the generosity of blog follower Steve Banks, who sent me this and several other interesting recordings, which I will post periodically. I also want to mention the expertise of another friend, Nick Morgan, who is an expert on the National Gramophonic Society, which recorded this disc in 1929. Nick's NGS discography can be found here.

You will note that the label above presents the work as Locke's String Quartet No. 6 rather than a Consort of ffowre Parts. That is because Locke's music had been transcribed for modern string quartet in 1927 by composer Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) and edited for performance by André Mangeot, the first violin of the International String Quartet, which performs on the recording at hand.

Matthew Locke

The world of Locke's "String Quartet" is far away from the quartets that would be most familiar to us today. His work is actually a brief suite for four viols, with an opening Fantasia followed by a Courante, Aire and Saraband, all 17th century dances. When Heseltine worked on his transcription, the music of the Restoration was in general little known and played. So he reworked the Locke work for the performers of the time.

At that point, Heseltine had already developed a reputation as a composer and especially as a combative critic. It was during this period that he in his "Warlock" guise wrote his masterpiece, The Curlew, a song cycle to Yeats' poetry. Alexander Young's performance with the Sebastian String Quartet can be found here.

André Mangeot

As I mentioned, Heseltine's Locke transcription was prepared for performance by André Mangeot in 1927. The two had hoped to have it published at that time, but Nick Morgan notes that it was not issued until 1932, after Heseltine's early death.

Mangeot and his quartet were mainstays of the National Gramophonic Society, an important early classical music label that was in effect an offshoot of The Gramophone magazine, which author Compton Mackenzie founded in 1923. Mackenzie soon thereafter began the National Gramophonic Society, which was to issue 166 discs from 1924-31, per Nick.

NGS's final release was a memorial version of The Curlew with artists including Mangeot's string quartet and tenor John Armstrong, as conducted by Heseltine's close friend Constant Lambert.

Peter Warlock, inscribed to André Mangeot, 1927

The personnel of the International String Quartet varied over time; for the Locke recording the group included Mangeot and Albert Voorsanger, violins, Eric Bray, viola, and John Shinebourne, cello.

The download includes several contemporary reviews; thanks to Nick for the citations. And special thanks again to Steve Banks for making this fascinating recording available to us.

FYI - if you would like to hear what a more modern early-music ensemble has made of Locke's consorts, Hespèrion XX's set can be found on YouTube.

Two Warlock Carols, Plus More from the English Singers

Several years ago I presented a few carols as performed by the pioneering English Singers, including "Corpus Christi" by the remarkable English composer Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine).

Today we have another version of "Corpus Christi," performed by the BBC Chorus, along with a second Warlock song, "A Cornish Christmas Carol."

At the same time, I've done a new transfer of the English Singers' 78. The coupling for "Corpus Christi" is a setting of "The Holly and the Ivy" by Rutland Boughton. Also there are three new seasonal songs from the English Singers, also dating from the late 1920s:

• "In Dulci Jubilo" in a setting by R.L. Pearsall
• William Byrd's "O Christ Who Art the Light"
• "The Wassail Song" in the Ralph Vaughan Williams arrangement

Leslie Woodgate

See my 2013 English Singers post for more on this important group.

The BBC Chorus recordings, which come from 1936, are conducted by BBC choral director Leslie Woodgate. The soloists in "Corpus Christi" are contralto Ann Wood and the young tenor Peter Pears, making what may be his first recording.

"A Cornish Christmas Carol" is a setting of a text is by Henry Jenner in a translation by Trelawny Dayrell Reed. Warlock makes use of "Nowell, Nowell" in his setting.

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