Wednesday, 17 December 2025

Warlock: Lillygay

Day 351

Warlock: Lillygay

Sarah Leonard

Malcolm Martineau 

The only Warlock I know is the Capriol Suite, which I must confess I find quite irritating with its ‘faux baroque’ false relations general sense of forced jollity.  So I wasn’t expecting much from this short cycle of 4 songs. They are not based on actual folk songs but use folk-song like melodies in the vocal line. I can’t say I enjoyed them much. I find parts of them rather twee but also the harmonic language very uncomfortable. That particular English style of shifting chromatic harmonies I find disconcerting and unsettling. It made me appreciate the very different approach that Britten took to his folk songs settings. Those are much more to my taste.

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