Because much of his work was written for specific theatre productions in the 1950s, or directly for broadcast in the 1960s to the 1980s, little of it survives today, though a number of his scores and related papers have been deposited in the British Library.
After two years National Service in the RAF he secured conducting lessons with the Austrian émigré Rudolf Schwarz, newly appointed to the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, subsequently becoming his Assistant Conductor.
[2] Already interested in Celtic culture (particularly Yeats), the music of Arnold Bax became a central influence for Whelen after hearing a performance of Tintagel.
[8] Based on a true story, the action alternates between a crashed aircraft in the African jungle near Benguela and the radio control room at Kakonda Airfield.
[10] John Hopkins and Whelen were jointly commissioned to create a work for BBC2 that would explore what a TV opera might look like, featuring "a contemporary plot and modern dress".
[11] The first was Some Place of Darkness, described by Jennifer Barnes as " a sombre domestic drama set in the present, it exemplified all that television promoted".
By 1969, for Incident at Owl Creek, Whelen had dispensed with a librettist, adapting the source material (based on the short story by Ambrose Bierce) himself.