Andante Tranquillo from Five Short Pieces

Born in Chatham, Kent in 1903, Percy Whitlock studied at the Royal College of Music under Stanford and Vaughan-Williams. After a short spell as Assistant Organist at Rochester Cathedral (having previously been a chorister there), he settled in Bournemouth, serving as Director of Music at St Stephen's, Bournemouth and working for the Pavilion Theatre in Bournemouth and with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra. He contracted tuberculosis at the age of 25, subsequently losing his sight and dying at the age of 42. He wrote a number of pieces for organ, for choir and for orchestra. Of his organ works, the Five Short pieces are perhaps the best known, of which the Andante Tranquillo is the third of the five.