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An illustration from Arbeau's 1588 dance instruction manual. A translation of this was published by Cyril Beaumont in 1925 for which Peter Warlock, provided a preface on the dance tunes of the period. In October 1927 Warlock created his Capriol Suite based on a selection of these tunes.

Although Peter Warlock was frustrated by a lack of formal and extensive musical training, his scholarship whilst editing early music at the British Museum, his work as music critic at The Daily Mail and in his own publication, Sackbut, engendered his pioneering views on musicology and the stuffy programming of his contemporaneous concert life. He contributed significantly to the renewed scholarship of Baroque music, and it is in his musical compositions that he reworked Baroque melodies into a compositional, rather than historically reproductive manner. One of Warlock’s only large ensemble works, Capriol for String Orchestra (1926), had a particular flair that inspired choreographer Fredrick Ashton to create Capriol Suite, a one-act ballet which was premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in 1930 by the Marie Rambert Dancers. The work was later performed by Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet during the 1940s, and by both Ballet Rambert and Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in the 1980s.

The Marie Rambert Dancers gave their first public performance at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on the 25 February 1930 in a programme, which included Capriol Suite. It proved so popular that two...

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Capriol Suite was first performed by the Marie Rambert Dancers at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, on 25 February 1930, it had choreography by Frederick Ashton, music by Peter Warlock and designs by...

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