Percy Whitlock

12+ albums

englishClassicalpost-romanticism20th century romanticcomposer

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Percy William Whitlock (1 June 1903, Chatham, Kent – 1 May 1946, Bournemouth) was an English organist and composer for his instrument. A student of Vaughan Williams at London's Royal College of Music, Whitlock quickly arrived at an idiom which combined elements of his teacher's output and that of Elgar. The result was immediately striking, particularly since his lush harmonic style also bore traces of Gershwin and other popular composers of the 1920s. Like Vaughan Williams and Delius, he often used themes that sounded like folksongs but were, in fact, original creations. From 1921 to 1930 Whitlock was assistant organist at Rochester Cathedral, Kent. Later (1930-1935) he served as music director at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Bournemouth, combining this from 1932 with the role of that city's borough organist, in which capacity he regularly played at the local Pavilion Theatre. After 1935 he worked for that theatre full-time. A tireless trainspotter, he wrote at length and with skill about his hobby.[1] Sometimes, for both prose and music, he used the pseudonym Kenneth Lark. Among Whitlock's organ works are Five Short Pieces (1929), Four Extemporisations (1933; these are actually much more cogent than their title suggests), Seven Sketches on Verses of the Psalms (1934), and — perhaps his masterpiece — Plymouth Suite (1937). He did produce an Organ Symphony in the same year as the Plymouth Suite; but it has hardly ever been played, nor (according to those few who have heard