Well, Warlock didn't compose it, in any but the vaguest sense. It's an arrangement - as the rest of the suite is - of material that Warlock found in a 1589 dance collection by the Frenchman Thoinot Arbeau: Orchésographie.
Incidentally, given the extent to which Warlock (real name Philip Heseltine, of course) had his brains scrambled by nudism, by alcoholism, and by black magic of an Aleister-Crowley-ish sort, he does seem an odd choice for OzConservative approval.
I see your point, Mr Richardson, and the music is indeed attractive, although as always, I do wonder how repellent an artist has to be before anyone studying his work says "Thus far and no farther."
These days I can no longer listen to even the better works of Benjamin Britten any more. His infantile leftism; his physical cowardice when better men than he were dying in Normandy and Auschwitz; above all, his habitual pedophilia (he would never get a police clearance if he were still with us): these vitiate in my mind whatever intense but slender creative talent he possessed.
I no longer want to see any artwork by Eric Gill either, for similar reasons. (Except that Gill's vices included incest - both intra- and inter-generational - and bestiality).
Do you want to know what my definition of a real conservative, as opposed to a fake-conservative of the Abbott-Cameron variety, is, Mr Richardson? It is this.
A real conservative accepts Paul Johnson's dictum on Hemingway: "his life holds a lesson all intellectuals need to learn: that art is not enough." A fake conservative feels no compunction publicly whining about "censorship", "philistines", "bigotry", "homophobia" etc.
Well, Warlock didn't compose it, in any but the vaguest sense. It's an arrangement - as the rest of the suite is - of material that Warlock found in a 1589 dance collection by the Frenchman Thoinot Arbeau: Orchésographie.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, given the extent to which Warlock (real name Philip Heseltine, of course) had his brains scrambled by nudism, by alcoholism, and by black magic of an Aleister-Crowley-ish sort, he does seem an odd choice for OzConservative approval.
Robert, it's true that Warlock is not an attractive figure, but nonetheless it's fine music. That's all I'm presenting it as.
DeleteI see your point, Mr Richardson, and the music is indeed attractive, although as always, I do wonder how repellent an artist has to be before anyone studying his work says "Thus far and no farther."
ReplyDeleteThese days I can no longer listen to even the better works of Benjamin Britten any more. His infantile leftism; his physical cowardice when better men than he were dying in Normandy and Auschwitz; above all, his habitual pedophilia (he would never get a police clearance if he were still with us): these vitiate in my mind whatever intense but slender creative talent he possessed.
I no longer want to see any artwork by Eric Gill either, for similar reasons. (Except that Gill's vices included incest - both intra- and inter-generational - and bestiality).
Do you want to know what my definition of a real conservative, as opposed to a fake-conservative of the Abbott-Cameron variety, is, Mr Richardson? It is this.
A real conservative accepts Paul Johnson's dictum on Hemingway: "his life holds a lesson all intellectuals need to learn: that art is not enough." A fake conservative feels no compunction publicly whining about "censorship", "philistines", "bigotry", "homophobia" etc.