1st movement from Sonata in C minor

Sonata in C minor for Organ – Percy Whitlock
‘To D.L.S. and Harriet’
Begun in July 1935 and completed in February 1936, Whitlock was writing at a stressful period of his life as he had just resigned from his post at St. Stephen’s Church Bournemouth. This did however give him more time to compose and to produce this substantial work, his most important for the organ. It was not an easy task, and his diary entries give some idea of his travail: 5th February ‘My organ sonata sounds ghastly’; 8th February ‘Played my new Finale for the Organ Sonata – not a successful movement yet’. One is reminded of RVW’s view that ‘composition is 95% sweat and 5% inspiration’! Whitlock’s Sonata, published in 1937, would take its equal place alongside other British organ sonatas that had been written by Herbert Howells (1934), Ernest Maynard (1936), Edward Bairstow (1937) and William Harris (1938).