Charles Villiers Stanford - Requiem (1897)

• published: 06 Jan 2014
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I. Introit - Adagio - 00:00 II. Kyrie - Allegro Tranquillo Ed Espressivo - 8:09 III. Gradual - Larghetto - 12:52 IV. Sequence - Dies Irae - Allegro Moderato Ma Energico - 17:35 V. Offetorium - Allegro - 47:59 VI. Sanctus - Allegro Non Troppo - 59:37 VII. Agnus Dei Et Lux Aeterna - 1:09:46 Of those British composers who preceded Elgar, the most significant are Hubert Parry and Charles Stanford. As composers and teachers, they laid the ground for the musical renaissance towards the end of the nineteenth century. Even more than Parry, Stanford was active across all musical genres. Born into an eminent Dublin legal family on 30 September 1852, he had already absorbed much of the 'canon' of Western classical music before entering Queens' College, Cambridge in 1870. Appointed organist at Trinity College in 1874, he spent much of the next three years studying in Germany. Returning to Cambridge, he galvanized the University Music Society with major British premières of such works as Brahms's First Symphony and Alto Rhapsody, and attracted such artists as the conductor Hans Richter and violinist Josef Joachim. Appointed Professor of Music at Cambridge in 1887, Stanford overhauled the university's Bachelor of Music degree and oversaw the music society's silver jubilee celebration, when honorary doctorates were awarded to Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saëns. Relations with Cambridge were never wholly amicable, and his appointment in 1883 as Professor of Composition to the newly-founded Royal College of Music allowed him to focus increasingly on the latter institution, where he trained an impressive list of composers including Bridge, Butterworth, Moeran and Vaughan Williams. He enjoyed lengthy conducting stints with the Bach Choir and Leeds Philharmonic Society, was awarded numerous honorary doctorates and received a knighthood in 1902. He died, the much respected but largely out-of-touch 'grand old man' of British music, in London on 29 March 1924. Early in his career Stanford had established a reputation for choral and church music. His Evening Services are central to the Anglican liturgy, while his part-songs remain in the repertoire of choral societies, above all his setting of Mary Coleridge's The Bluebird. Although he completed a dozen operas, none held the stage: a major disappointment for one who vigorously espoused the cause of opera in Britain over his career. His orchestral music fared rather better, with several symphonies and concertos being taken up by leading conductors and soloists, though it was a mark of his declining reputation that many of his later works remained unpublished and even unperformed at the time of his death. Central to Stanford's achievement is the series of seven symphonies that traverses the greater part of his output. These are marked by a compositional expertise matched only by his older contemporary (and his perceived rival) Parry, while seemingly content to remain within the stylistic ambit of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, an intimation of the retrogressive tendencies that caused him to indulge in increasingly bitter polemic during his last years. While he adhered to the classical design, his often subtle approach to standard movement-forms and resourceful orchestration make his symphonies well worth exploring.