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Eynsford Days

Two Piano Pieces in the Spirit of Peter Warlock and E. J. Moeran

John Mitchell

A hundred years ago this month Peter Warlock (1894–1930) became the tenant of a small cottage in the West Kent village of Eynsford. He was joined there by his fellow composer friend E. J. Moeran (1894–1950) who he had met for the first time a couple of years earlier. It was during the following few years that the ‘Warlock Legend’ largely originates—a period renowned for its riotous living, with an open house policy to all sorts of visitors, the more outré the better. For Warlock (whose real name was Philip Heseltine) his time there was quite productive: apart from the composition of many of his finest songs and his best-known work, Capriol, several books and various transcriptions also came from his pen. By contrast, it was more of a lean time for Moeran, who generally found life at the cottage too distracting, and he produced very little in the way of creative work. The Eynsford sojourn lasted until the autumn of 1928, when financial constraints necessitated the termination of the tenancy and resulted in their going their separate ways.

The present two piano pieces that comprise Eynsford Days are published together by way of commemorating the centenary of the two composers’ move to Eynsford in January 1925. The first was originally composed for saxophone quartet in 1976 as a tribute piece to Warlock and entitled Peterism (a title that had been used by Warlock for some of his song groups). It was subsequently arranged by others for string orchestra (Frank Bayford); clarinet quartet (Marcus Blunt); and organ (Peter Naylor); and then by myself for piano duet in 1983. I recently made the piano solo arrangement especially for the present publication. The second piece dates from 2006 and, with it turning out to be somewhat Moeran-flavoured, I initially described it as a ‘MockMoeranism’.

—John Mitchell, January 2025

Sample pages

(Click to enlarge)

		Composer	Title	Grade	Forces	Total duration
		John Mitchell	Eynsford Days Two Piano Pieces in the Spirit of Peter Warlock and E. J. Moeran	6 to 7	Piano	5¼ mins
	#	Composer	Movement		Forces	Duration
	1	John Mitchell	1. (PW)		Piano	2 mins
	2		2. (EJM)			3¼ mins

Recorded performance

Ennio Caironi, Piano

Catalogue code: FM289 • Published: 1st January 2025
Entry last updated: 18th January 2025