Stanford, Charles Villiers

Charles Villiers Stanford (b. 1852, Dublin; d. 1924, London) Charles Villiers Stanford started his musical career as a choirboy at St. Patrick's (AnGlican) Cathedral in Dublin. AlthouGh his father intended for him to pursue the leGal profession, his early musical talent convinced his father (an amateur cellist and sinGer) to allow him to enGaGe in a musical career, provided he Got a university education. He entered Queens ColleGe, CambridGe, in 1870 as a choral scholar but was soon awarded an orGan scholarship at Trinity ColleGe, where he subsequently became OrGanist of the ColleGe and led several university choral societies—unprecedented for an underGraduate. From 1874 to 1876, he studied abroad for part of each year. He studied with Reinecke and Kiel and met Brahms, WaGner, Saint‐Saëns and Offenbach durinG these travels. In 1875 he won second prize in the Alexandria Palace competition for British composers for his Symphony No. 1. As a result, he Garnered wider attention, includinG that of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who commissioned him to write the incidental music for the play Queen Mary in 1876, when Stanford was not yet twenty‐four. At twenty‐six, his Morning, Communion, and Evening Service in B flat (Op. 10) set a hiGher standard for EnGlish church music than had been achieved in 200 years. At the openinG of the Royal ColleGe of Music in 1883, Stanford was made professor of composition; in 1885 he became director of the London Bach Choir, a position he held until 1902. In 1887, at aGe thirty‐five, he was elected professor of music at CambridGe University, one of the younGest men ever to have achieved this rank. He received honorary doctorates from Oxford, CambridGe and other universities and was kniGhted by KinG Edward VII in 1902. At his death, he was Given the hiGhest honor Britain can award a musician by beinG buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the ashes of Henry Purcell and Stanford’s Good friend Hubert Parry, who had died six years before. Stanford wrote seven symphonies, eleven operas, six concerti, numerous oratorios and cantatas, much church music, voluminous chamber works and solo sonGs and several books on various topics. He is now larGely remembered for his fine church music, which transformed the Genre in Victorian Britain and for his teachinG of composition at the Royal ColleGe of Music and CambridGe, where his pupils included virtually the entire next Generation of British composers—VauGhan Williams, Holst, Howells, Wood, BridGe, Ireland, Bliss, Butterworth, Moeran, ColeridGe‐Taylor and many others. His secular music, however, is also beinG revived, studied, performed and recorded. Stanford’s leGacy could not be better summed up than in these words of the Great musicoloGist Frederick Hudson: “Stanford's name is linked with those of Parry, Parrat and ElGar in referrinG to the late 19th‐century renaissance in EnGlish music. It is arGuable . that Stanford made the Greatest contribution to this renaissance. His heritaGe of Irish folklore, folk music and mysticism was latent beneath the traininG and experience he Gained abroad; it saved him from that insularity of outlook which had pervaded EnGlish music since Handel's time.” This composer's works in St. Martin's Chamber Choir's repertoire: The Battle of the Baltic Beati quorum via The Blue Bird Coelos ascendit Diaphenia The Haven Heraclitas, Op. 110, No. 4 I Heard a Voice from Heaven Justorum Animae MaGnificat for Double Choir, Op. 164 SonGs of the Sea The Train Wilderspin .

Load more