Gray, Cecil Peter Warlock: a memoir of Philip Heseltine. With contributions from Sir Richard Terry and Robert Nichols , London: Jonathan Cape, 1934.

Foreword by Augustus John. Frontispiece and three plates, 8vo, pp 319, a little thumbed throughout, fore-edge foxed, occasional foxing internally (and rather marked round the margins of the title-page and frontispiece), green cloth, a bit marked and slightly worn, spine slightly faded. SCARCE. [Peter Warlock was a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine (30 October 1894 - 17 December 1930), an Anglo-Welsh composer (mainly of songs) and music critic. He used the pseudonym (and various others) when composing, and is now better known by this name. Heseltine wrote his earliest mature compositions, published to critical acclaim under the newly adopted pseudonym Peter Warlock, following his sojourn in Ireland of 1917-1918. They were followed by a period of concentration on musical journalism; for a while, he was the editor of the musical magazine The Sackbut. His most prolific period, both as a composer and author, was in the early 1920s, when he withdrew from the financial and social pressures of London to his mother's and stepfather's house in mid-Wales. Here he wrote some of his finest songs, finally completing his song cycle The Curlew to poems by W. B. Yeats. During this period he also met Bartók, who visited him while returning from a concert in Aberystwyth arranged by Professor Walford Davies, and whose influence can perhaps be seen in The Curlew. Between 1925 and 1929, following a quiet period, Warlock and his colleague E. J. Moeran led a wild, boozy life in Eynsford, Kent, having to deal with the local police more than once - including for riding his motorbike naked. For Warlock, this was one of the most fruitful periods of his life, but by the end of the 1920s his creativity was waning and he had to support himself with music criticism again. He was suffering from severe depression, but whether his death from gas poisoning at the age of 36 was suicide or an accident is not known for certain. His cat had been put out of the room before he died, perhaps to spare it. There is a third possibility: Warlock had made Bernard van Dieren his heir in his will, inspiring claims by Warlock's son Nigel Heseltine that van Dieren had murdered his father. His name is surrounded by rumours of involvement with the occult, an interest which he shared with others in the bohemian world of the early 20th century - for example the novelist Mary Butts asserted that it was Warlock who initially introduced her to these subjects. Other less conventional aspects of Peter Warlock's life include experimentation with cannabis tincture, a gift for the composition of obscene limericks and a marked interest in flagellation. Apart from original works, Warlock edited and transcribed many lute songs by Elizabethan and Jacobean composers in addition to music by Purcell and other Baroque composers. He also did much to promote the music of Delius, especially by organizing the successful Delius Festival of 1929 with Thomas Beecham. He wrote the first biography of Delius, as well as, with Cecil Gray, a book about Carlo Gesualdo. His book on The English Ayre was a groundbreaking study, but he also wrote about contemporary music. His article on Arnold Schoenberg was probably the first substantial study in English of his music. In 1925, Warlock rediscovered the music of sixteenth-century composer Thomas Whythorne, and published a book of his compositions and poetry.] (Book ref. 006830)  £25.00

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