Fidelis

Percy (William) Whitlock was born on 1 June 1903 in Chatham, Kent (UK). He was a distinguished organist and post-romantic composer.

Whitlock studied at London's Royal College of Music with Charles Villiers Stanford and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

From 1921-1930, Whitlock was assistant organist at Rochester Cathedral in Kent. The then cathedral organ was an instrument built by J W Walker & Sons and dating from 1905.

PWW served as Director of Music at St Stephen's Church, Bournemouth (an Anglo-Catholic parish) for the next five years, combining this from 1932 with the role of that town's borough organist, in which capacity he regularly played the Compton organ at the local Pavilion Theatre. From 1935, he worked for the Pavilion Theatre full-time.

Whitlock was often sought out as a recitalist. Despite the number of recitals he performed, he declined to give many more.

A tireless railway enthusiast, he wrote at length and with skill about his interest. Sometimes, for both prose and music, he used the pseudonym "Kenneth Lark."

He worked closely with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra; the orchestra's conductor from 1935-1940 was Richard Austin, whose father Frederic Austin dedicated his Organ Sonata to Whitlock.

Whitlock was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1928. Near the end of his life, he lost his sight altogether, possibly as a result of his diabetes, and he died in Bournemouth a few weeks before his 43rd birthday, on 1 May, 1946.

For decades afterwards he remained largely forgotten. This neglect has eased in recent times with a new-found appreciation of his work.

Fidelis is the third piece in the set entitled Four Extemporisations. The piece is dedicated to Charles F W Keel (b 1916), Whitlock’s former head chorister at St Stephen’s, Bournemouth. It has been described as ‘the Anglican preamble par excellence’. The piece grows organically from the initial rising four-note germ cell. It is scored for 3m&p.