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MS 943

Reference code

MS 943

Title

Hammond archive of Peter Warlock and Bruce Blunt manuscripts

Level

Sub-fonds

Administrative / Biographical history

Warlock, Peter (1894-1930)

Peter Warlock was born Philip Arnold Heseltine in London in 1894. He attended Eton College between 1908 and 1911, where he encountered a number of formative musical influences, including Frederick Delius. His musical career was established early, and he wrote a number of songs in the last years of the First World War, published under the pseudonym of Peter Warlock. He combined his composition with work transcribing and editing early English music, and writing as a music critic. He died in 1930 as the result of coal-gas poisoning; the inquest gave an open verdict, but it is generally believed that his death was suicide.

See Warlock's entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Grove Music for more information on Warlock's biography and his work.
Blunt was an English poet, journalist and wine merchant best known for his collaborations with the composer Peter Warlock, who set a number of his texts. For more information on Blunt's friendship with Warlock, see Barry Smith, 'Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock: a friendship revealed' (Oxford University Press, 2000).

Date

1916-1930

Extent & medium

2 files and 1 bound volume

Content description

Contains:

1. Autograph manuscript score of 'The cricketers of Hambledon', song by Peter Warlock setting words by Bruce Blunt. 'Composed expressly for the Hambledon band and choir. December 1928'. Fair copy. 3 leaves.
2. Autograph manuscript score of 'The fox', song for voice and piano by Peter Warlock setting words by Bruce Blunt. Address given on first leaf as 12a Tite Street, Chelsea, but dated at the end 'Bramdean, 1930. With some amendments in pencil. 4 leaves.
3. A small exercise book of manuscript poems by Bruce Blunt. Manuscript title-page reads: 'Verses. Vol. II. by G.H.B.Blunt. 29th March.' Contains 21 poems. A few have been dated May 1916, and some written at Bradfield.

Also contains a copy of an article by Brian Hammond from the Peter Warlock Society's newsletter from Autumn 1996, giving an account of his encounters with Bruce Blunt and his acquisition of the manuscripts.

Provenance

Given to Brian Hammond by Dorcas Bignell in c. 1964. Bignell was Bruce Blunt's housekeeper at Breach Plain Cottage in Bramdean, Hampshire.

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