During the 1920s, Peter Warlock (1894–1930) did much pioneering work in the field of transcribing and editing early music, and one of the manuscripts he scrutinised was an early 17th century part-book in the British Museum. From this manuscript he extracted six numbers which he then transcribed for string quintet, and they were published by Oxford University Press in 1926 as Six English Tunes. Although Warlock described them as ‘tunes’, each of them has a strong feel of a dance movement. Around the time they were published, Warlock went on to compose Capriol, his most popular composition, which is also in six movements, perhaps raising the question whether there might be a loose connection between the two works. Warlock’s having written Capriol as a piano duet was accordingly the cue to arrange the Six English Tunes for this medium by way of making it a companion piece.
