Two Pieces for Small Orchestra: “Wythorne’s Shadow”

• “Whythorne’s Shadow” was composed in 1932, while Moeran was living quietly in the Cotswolds after the riotous period of his life spent partying with Peter Warlock.¹
• “Whythorne’s Shadow” was inspired by a song by Elizabethan composer Thomas Whythorne (1528-1595).²
  • Moeran’s friend Peter Warlock led the way in rediscovering the music of Thomas Whythorne with his 1927 publication Thomas Whythorne: An Unknown Elizabethan Composer.³
  • Whythorne’s autobiography, rediscovered in 1955, is the considered the “first sustained English autobiography.”⁴
• Of this piece, Moeran said, “This piece is based on a part-song by Thomas Whythorne published in 1571. The nature of the work cannot be better expounded than by quoting the poem of Whythorne’s song:”⁵

As thy shadow itself apply’th
To follow thee whereso thou go,
And when thou bends, itself it wry’’th,
Turning as thou both to and fro:
The flatterer doth even so,
And shopes himself the same to gloze,
With many a fawning and gay show,
Whom he would frame for his purpose.

From Thomas Whythorne’s part song, which inspired “Whythorne’s Shadow”

1. Ian Maxwell, “Moeran, E(rnest) J(ohn) S(meed),” Grove Music Online (January 20, 2001), accessed November 19, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000048243. 
2. Ibid.
3. James M. Osborn and Robert McQuillan, “Whythorne, Thomas,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000030246. 
4. Ibid.
5. E.J. Moeran, “Whythorne’s Shadow, from Two Pieces for Small Orchestra” (London: Novello, 1935), i.