Whythorne’s Shadow was composed by E. J. Moeran (1894–1950) in 1931 and scored for strings and four woodwinds. The piece is based on a part-song by Thomas Whythorne published in 1571. Although dedicated to the conductor Anthony Bernard, there has been some speculation that the work is more in the way of an In Memoriam for Moeran’s friend, Peter Warlock. Almost exact contemporaries, they had shared a cottage together in the Kentish village of Eynsford from 1925 to 1928. When Warlock died unexpectedly in 1930 it undoubtedly affected Moeran profoundly, and it could well be that Whythorne’s Shadow was both a tribute and a means of exorcising Warlock’s influence. Moeran had probably become aware of the Whythorne original via a transcription of the part-song into modern notation that Warlock had made in 1927. The present transcription of the piece for solo piano was made partly to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of Moeran’s death in 1950. The cover illustration is a portrait in oils of Thomas Whythorne and, dating from 1569, is one of the earliest painted of an English composer. Whythorne is also of note through having penned what is likely to be the earliest surviving autobiography (c. 1576) in the English language.
Whythorne’s Shadow is one of a pair of short orchestral pieces (the other being Lonely Waters) that Moeran wrote in 1931 as Two Pieces for Small Orchestra. Both pieces are based on existing melodies: Lonely Waters on a folksong and Whythorne’s Shadow on an Elizabethan tune. Both have been arranged for piano solo by John Mitchell and are available from Fand.
