ERNEST JOHN MOERAN 1894 - 1950

Ernest John Moeran (31 December 1894 – 1 December 1950) was an English composer who had strong associations with Ireland (his father was Irish, he spent much of his life there, and he died there).

His first mature compositions, songs and chamber music, date from this time. He also began collecting and arranging folk music of Norfolk and other regions. He collected about 150 folk songs in Norfolk and Suffolk. His preferred method was to sit in a country pub and wait until an old man started singing. He noted the song down and then asked for more. According to the biography The Music of E. J. Moeran by Geoffrey Self (1986), he spent time living with gypsies, but no further details are available. He spent some time after the war living at Kington, Herefordshire. By the mid-1920s, Moeran had become close friends with Peter Warlock and they lived for some years in Eynsford, Kent, notorious among the locals for their frequent drunken revelry. For the rest of his life, Moeran had problems with alcohol, later joined by mental instability. After Warlock's death in 1930, he became interested in his Irish roots and began spending much of his time in Kenmare, County Kerry.
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