Philip Heseltine was born in London in 1894 and in his short life won public acclaim for the songs he wrote under the pseudonym Peter Warlock. He was particularly noted for his settings of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts, and brought the most delicate sensibility of the music of that period to his compositions. Warlock was considered an authority on Elizabethan music and in the course of his life he edited over three hundred Elizabethan and Jacobean lute songs for voice and keyboard or for choir.

Rarely can these works have been so beautifully and movingly performed on record as in this celebrated album, featuring John Mark Ainsley at the peak of his considerable powers, perfectly accompanied by Roger Vignoles.