Since I am such a musical anglophile, and since Halloween happens my favorite holiday, I suppose it’s hardly surprising that my thoughts would gravitate to the influence of the occult on English music.
Most notorious, perhaps, would be the case of Philip Heseltine, who composed under the name of Peter Warlock. Heseltine was born on this date in 1894. He lived a scandalous life – carousing, trolling his enemies, riding naked on a motorcycle, and using one of D.H. Lawrence’s manuscripts as toilet paper – while pursuing his fascination with “the science known as Black Magic.” His life ended when he was only 36 years-old, his body found in his flat – the cause of death: gas poisoning. He left behind 100 songs, a number of choral works, and a handful of orchestral pieces. Whether or not his end was accidental has never been unanimously accepted.
The first time Heseltine assumed the pen name Warlock was for a 1916 article on the chamber music of Eugene Goossens. Goossens, who would later be honored with a knighthood, spent the better part of a decade in Australia, conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and directing the NSW State Conservatorium of Music.
It wasn’t all work and no play, however. During his leisure hours, Goossens entered into a passionate affair with Rosaleen Norton, soon to be known as the Witch of Kings Cross. Norton was an artist and occultist, whose paintings of demons and phalluses were decidedly out-of-step with the spirit of the time.
In 1955, a scandal involving a mentally ill woman who claimed she had participated in a Satanic Black Mass at Norton’s flat had a domino effect. Sure, Norton had her own coven, but she denied ever being a Satanist. She did however stand by her charms and hexes. Her paintings were removed from public exhibitions and photographs were confiscated from her home. Arrests on obscenity and blasphemy charges came fast and furious. The tabloids had a field day.
Unfortunately, Goossens became collateral damage. Incriminating letters, which he had asked Norton to destroy after reading, were found stashed beneath her sofa. Though he was in England when the storm broke, wholly ignorant of the antipodean moral panic, the authorities lay in wait upon his return. Among his luggage were found 800 “pornographic” photos, film, masks, and incense. As a high-profile musical figure, for all intents and purposes, the conductor’s Goossens was cooked.
Then there was the matter of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The order, which sported Aleister Crowley among its members, was a secret society devoted to occult, metaphysical, and paranormal activities. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the composer John Ireland’s relationship with Welsh writer of the supernatural Arthur Machen, who also belonged to the society. Ireland wrote several works profoundly influenced by Machen’s philosophies and dedicated his piece for piano and orchestra, “Legend,” to him.
Even Sir Edward Elgar, composer of “Land of Hope and Glory,” had his brush with the occult, by way of supernatural writer Algernon Blackwood, also a member of the Hermetic Order. Elgar provided incidental music for “The Starlight Express,” based on Blackwood’s “A Prisoner in Fairyland.” The two men struck up a friendship, and though there is no evidence to link Elgar to actual involvement with the Golden Dawn, there are those who allege there to be Rosicrucian symbols in the “Enigma Variations,” completed years earlier, in 1899.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Gustav Meyrink, Sax Rohmer, Bram Stoker, and William Butler Yeats were also members of the secret order. I imagine them all, like something out of Dennis Wheatley, gathering in their robes to offer up sacrifices to the Goat of Mendes!
Peter Warlock and the occult
https://interlude.hk/peter-warlock-league-devil/
Eugene Goossens and the occult
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-conservatorium-director-and-the-witch-20150702-gi3h8y.html
John Ireland and the occult
https://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/11/secret-life-of-english-pastoralist.html
Edward Elgar and the occult
https://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/01/elgar-and-occult.html
Warlock’s melancholy masterpiece, “The Curlew,” after poetry of Yeats:
Eugene Goossens, Concertino for Double String Orchestra
John Ireland, “Legend”
Sir Edward Elgar, “The Starlight Express”
