Ex. 2-16: Roister Doister

No. 1 from Warlock's "Peterisms, Set II" (1924). The text is from Nicholas Udall's play "Ralph Roister Doister" (c. 1552), often regarded as the first comedy in the English language. "Roister-doister" means a swaggering buffoon.

The score is marked "Rumbustiously" — boisterously — and the song opens with "I mun be married a Sunday." Warlock, whose real name was Philip Heseltine, was devoted to Elizabethan literature and fused its spirit with his own modern harmonic language.

Track 24 from the album Warlock: The Curlew, Lillygay by Adrian Thompson, Christopher Maltman, John Constable and The Duke Quartet (2003)
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