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Peter Warlock
and the Novel
Warlock gained a certain notoriety through the fact that a
thinly-disguised version of his larger-than-life character
features in so many literary works. Besides appearing,
albeit thinly veiled, as the effete Halliday in Lawrence’s
Women in Love and the boisterous Coleman in Aldous Huxley’s
Antic Hay, he serves as the model for Paul Weaver in
The
Birds by Frank Baker, Robert Durand in Dead End of the Sky
(the third of four short novels entitled Rainbow Fish) by
Ralph Bates; Giles Revelstoke in A Mixture of Frailties
by
Robertson Davies and Julian Oakes in Jean Rhys’ short story,
Till September Petronella. This, as editor Barry Smith
remarks in his Introduction, surely must be some kind of a
record. |
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The composer Philip Heseltine (1894-1930), better known by his pseudonym
Peter Warlock, is one of the most fascinating characters in
twentieth-century English music.
As a musician largely self-taught, he is considered by many to be one of
the great English song-writers: The Curlew is an acknowledged
masterpiece of the genre. But besides being a composer, he was also an
important pioneer editor of early music as well as the author of a
number of books and numerous articles for newspapers and journals. His
eccentric life-style, his outspoken comments and writings about music,
as well as the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, have all
ensured that the 'Warlock legend' has not lost its fascination over the
years.
During his short life he was a prolific and highly articulate letter
writer and some thousand of his letters have survived. These, Warlock
scholar and authority Barry Smith has edited with copious annotations
and footnotes as well as providing generous background material. Besides
giving new insights into Warlock's mercurial character, these letters
illuminate the first thirty years of the twentieth century with
fascinating glimpses of some of the great names in the world of music,
art and literature.
Add this title to your shopping cart
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37 b/w illustrations
1600 pages
Binding: hardback
ISBN: 9781843830801
Publication date: 1/Apr/2005
Price: £375.00 / £ 200.00
Click below to read sample letters from Volume III
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