I LOVE Charles Stanford's music. Who's with me?
  • mjcurtis
    Posts: 62
    Justorum animae

    I have always heard people talking down about his music and I never understood why. I think it is superbly beautiful!

    Matt Curtis
    www.choraltracks.com
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    The requiem is second to none!
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Hmm, never encountered such bias. BEATI....is standard operating procedure 'round these parts. Thinking of "A new Jerusalem' for Easter.
  • mjcurtis
    Posts: 62
    Beati is definitely up there as well. I totally agree. I really want to record "The Blue Bird" soon.

    Matt Curtis
    www.choraltrack.com
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    What's to talk down? Seriously... What Stanford (and Parry, and Chadwick in America) did was to speak the Brahms/Dvorak lingua franca supremely well, and give it an Anglophone accent. I've never understood the historiography that says that since they didn't do anything shockingly new, they aren't important.

    Stanford in Bb was standard Evensong fare at St. James (the once or twice a year we did evensong). Once we did one of the other settings with a soprano solo, and Graham Schultz (departed alas to Albany) imported a couple of boys from the Ohio Boychoir...yummy!
  • Mark P.
    Posts: 248
    As a singer, I love Stanford. His music lies well in the voice and yet there is always something surprising in the vocal parts. It's not "business as usual" which I sometimes find with lesser composers. To me, Stanford understood the choral art form.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Stanford Evening Service in C = pure joy.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    Stanford Evening Service in C = pure joy.
    Indeed! Hie thee to thy nearest Anglican Use parish and thou canst enjoy it as part of Catholic Evensong!
  • SamuelDorlaque
    Posts: 318
    Check out Stanford's "And I Saw Another Angel." It's great for All Saints.
  • SamuelDorlaque
    Posts: 318
    Also the "Coronation" Te Deum in Bb from Opus 10 and the anthem "How Beauteous Are The Feet."
  • richardUKrichardUK
    Posts: 85
    For Catholic musicians I would particularly recommend Stanford's "Three Motets" published as a set by Boosey: "Beati Quorum Via" / "Coelos Ascendit Hodie" (Ascension)/ and "Justorum Animae" (All Saints). All are unaccompanied Latin pieces of great beauty. The other work, which is almost totally unknown in the USA, is the Latin Magnificat for unaccompanied double choir composed in 1918 in memory of Sir Hubert Parry. Fantastic piece, a tour-de-force, very difficult and maybe 12 or so minutes of music, but a true masterpiece. The publisher escapes my mind at the moment. I think Stanford's works for unaccompanied choir are of a finer quality than his works for choir-plus-organ, but that's just my opinion.
  • Daniel Bennett PageDaniel Bennett Page
    Posts: 835
    Don't leave out Stanford's Bible Songs (Opus 113) and their associated hymn anthems: beautiful.
    If you want to know what Stanford, Parry, and Elgar did for English music, play some Stainer, Maunder, and Barnby and then something by S, P, or E.
    And it would be hard to top the Stanford Evening Service in G with a proper child treble singing the solo.
  • bgeorge77
    Posts: 190
    I love Beati Quorum Via.
  • R J StoveR J Stove
    Posts: 302
    Oddly enough, only this afternoon I played at a recital an organ miniature by Stanford (No. 6, in E flat major, from his Opus 101 collection of preludes and postludes - this piece is based on the Irish hymn tune often sung to the words "O breathe on me, O breath of God" or alternatively "The king of love my shepherd is"). A very effective little item, not overwhelmingly difficult, and a worthwhile addition, I'd have thought, to any organist's library.
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