So there’s this composer, Philip Arnold Heseltine, but he goes by Peter Warlock because he believes himself a wizard. And there’s his lover, a model named Minnie Lucie Channing who goes by Puma because … well, I’ll leave that up to your imagination.

Warlock lived only 36 years, taking his own life in the end. However, he managed to squeeze quite a bit of raucous living into that short life, including occult practices, fiery relationships, an unwanted child, saying whatever he wanted in the worst of circumstances, weekly orgies, police raids, and heavy drinking. He wrote his own epitaph:

Here lies Warlock the composer
Who lived next door to Munn the grocer.
He died of drink and copulation,
A sad discredit to the nation.

You’d expect anybody who lived a life like this to look awesome as well … and yes, Warlock had a very unique look (remarkably like Errol Flynn, I might add.)

Professionally, he was never happy with his work or his surroundings; he moved around quite a bit, took a number of different unsuccessful jobs, started (and never finished) many projects. Besides music composition, he published a number of different music journals, wrote musicological books, and helped to grow the budding new interest in folk and early music at the beginning of the 20th century. The influence of English folk music and early music styles can be heard in his popular Caprol Suite for strings. It features six folk-dance-like movements, simple melodies, and a sort of modern-modal harmony.

So there’s this thing called basso continuo.

If you’ve ever seen a “lead sheet“, then you’re already halfway to understanding basso continuo (or BC.) A modern lead sheet displays the melody (and words) of a song, with the chords listed above the melody. The bass, guitar, and keyboard instruments play the printed chords while a voice or melodic instrument plays the melody. Rewind 250 years. Nearly every composition that wasn’t a solo keyboard work had a basso continuo part. They all read the same piece of a music – a bassline with a series of numbers which indicted the chords to be played. This part was played by the bass instruments (cello, double bass, bassoon) as well as the instruments capable of playing chords: the harpsichord, organ, lute, and … the Theorbo!

The Theorbo is a guitar on steroids. Put away your six-string – this badboy has 14-19 strings (and unlike the 12-string guitar, each of the 14 strings is tuned to a completely different note – no doubling.) This selection from a dance suite by Robert de Visée (court lutist for Louis XIV) takes the theorbo out of its basso continuo role and lets you hear its dulcet tones in a solo performance.

Today’s episode is brought to you by the International Talk Like a Pirate Day advocacy board.

Arrrg! Avast, ye landlubbers, and harken to me tale. The seas be wild, they be, and only the sturdiest sea-legs be worthy of a ship as fine as the Flying Dutchman. What be the Flying Dutchman, ye ask? Shiver me timbers, I ne’er known a landlubber such as ye, what never heard of the Dutchman. ‘Tis a ghost ship, doomed to sail the seven seas, and her ghost captain is bound to this fate forever, unless – ah, ye guessed it – a fair wench did declare love for him. You see, us pirates be romantic folk – we love the battle between life and death, damnation and salvation, and the redemption that only true love can give ye. Wot? Ye don’t believe me, do ye? Well, a pox on you and your damned landlubbering gollymangers, and may ye be caught in the storm like the one that inspired old Dicky Wagner to compose this overture, and may it bring ye to Davy Jone’s locker, or worse yet, bring ye aboard the accursed Flying Dutchman herself.

If it tickle ye barnacles, I must mention that this recording be the finest I’ve heard – the inner parts do not get obscured in a sea of messy writing. Ye can hear every note clearly. May your sailing skies be as clear and clean as these.