Of the British composers to have emerged immediately before Elgar, the most significant were Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Stanford. Central to Stanford' achievement are the seven symphonies covering the greater part of his career.
It seems a paradox that over the years we have gone to such great lengths to become familiar with the music of Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan-Willliams, John Ireland, Frank Bridge, and Arthur Bliss, yet we still know far less of the music of Stanford, their composition teacher at the Royal College of Music! There has been renewed interest in the music of Stanford recently, and with the kind support of the Stanford Society, SOMM now turns the spotlight on Stanford’s Partsongs in the second of a series of recordings with the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, which has achieved an enviable reputation under the direction of Paul Spicer. The eight Partsongs Op. 119, set to poems by Mary Coleridge, appear on CD as a complete set for the very first time!
Completed in 1887, Stanford' 'Irish' Symphony enjoyed immediate and widespread success, continuing to be played well into the twentieth century.
STANFORD: Symphonies, Vol. 3 (Nos. 3 and 6)
$19.99
CD
Naxos
May 27, 2008
8570355
Stanford: Choral Music / Hill, Bach Choir, Bournemouth Symphony
Naxos
Available as
CD
$19.99
$13.99
Sep 09, 2016
Choral music was central to Charles Villiers Stanford's life as a composer. Balancing solemnity with rapturous affirmation. The Resurrection was his first major choral work, written while he was studying under Carl Reinecke in Leipzig and anticipating Mahler's use of Klopstock's eponymous poem in his "Resurrection" Symphony. The dramatic, at times almost operatic and Wagnerian Stabat Mater is a cantata with two purely orchestral movements suggestive of a large-scale symphony, while Song to the Soul contains some of Stanford's most exhilarating utterances, though it was never performed in his lifetime.
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Stanford: Choral Music / Hill, Bach Choir, Bournemouth Symphony
$19.99
$13.99
CD
Naxos
Sep 09, 2016
8573512
Stanford: Orchestral Songs
Resonus Classics
Available as
CD
$16.99
Jul 26, 2024
Charles Villiers Stanford felt a special affinity for the orchestral song, an idiom which began to establish itself as a distinct art form in it's own right at the end of the nineteenth century with composers such as Mahler, Richard Strauss, Elgar and Bantock. This recording, released to mark the composer's centenary year, features a wide selection of colourful and inventive orchestrations he made of his own songs and arrangements of Irish folk melodies for the concert hall, many of which were made for the leading soloists of the days such as Harry Plunket Greene, David Bispham, Marie Brema and Olga Michailoff (the wife of Henry Wood).
Stanford: Orchestral Songs
$16.99
CD
Resonus Classics
Jul 26, 2024
RES10345
Stanford: Cushendall - Irish Song Cycles
SOMM Recordings
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$20.99
$15.99
Oct 11, 2024
Stanford: Cushendall - Irish Song Cycles
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Stanford: Cushendall - Irish Song Cycles
$20.99
$15.99
CD
SOMM Recordings
Oct 11, 2024
SOMMCD 0681
Stanford: String Quintets & Intermezzi / Members Of The Dante And Endellion Quartets
SOMM Recordings
Available as
CD
$20.99
Nov 20, 2020
SOMM Recordings’ widely acclaimed survey of Charles Villiers Stanford’s chamber music continues with his two String Quintets and Three Intermezzi arranged for cello and piano. A unique collaboration between members of the Dante and Endellion Quartets, together with pianist Benjamin Frith, sees first recordings of the String Quintet No.2 in C minor and the arrangement of the Three Intermezzi. Composed with Stanford’s lifelong mentor, the legendary violinist Joseph Joachim, in mind, the Quintets are the product of a master craftsman speaking with his own distinctive voice. Both were first performed in 1904 and separately owe a direct and glancing debt to Brahms. The First echoes the three-movement structure of Brahms’ First Quintet and its melodious warmth although its second movement strikingly makes use of an archaic form of Irish traditional singing – sean nós. Composed to mark the 60th anniversary of Joachim’s first visit to Britain, the Second Quintet shares what Stanford authority Jeremy Dibble in his erudite booklet notes describes as “the same serious demeanor and a similar outlook towards grand architecture” of Brahms’ First Symphony, which Joachim conducted on that occasion. Originally composed for clarinet and piano, the Three Intermezzi of 1880 display a masterly interplay between cello and piano in Stanford’s own arrangement. The Dante Quartet’s three-volume survey of Stanford’s String Quartets was universally admired. Of Volume 2, Gramophone enthused: “All three of the works on this disc are premiere recordings, an astonishing state of affairs for what must surely be the most significant quartet cycle by any British composer before Frank Bridge. That alone makes this disc essential listening... They’re each worth hearing, and the Dante Quartet go at them with red-blooded gusto and an energy that’s clearly born from the thrill of discovery... SOMM and the Dantes have broken important new ground with impressive commitment.”
Stanford: String Quintets & Intermezzi / Members Of The Dante And Endellion Quartets
$20.99
CD
SOMM Recordings
Nov 20, 2020
SOMMCD 0623
Stanford: Symphonies no 2 and 5 / Lloyd-Jones
Naxos
Available as
CD
$19.99
Oct 30, 2007
If you bought the earlier issue, do not hesitate to add this disc to your shelves
Hot on the heels of the first volume of the projected Naxos Stanford symphony cycle (see review) comes Volume Two, which again features David Lloyd-Jones at the helm of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
The Second symphony was premièred, under the composer’s baton, in Cambridge in 1882 and there’s a passing link with the subsequent première of the Fourth symphony in Berlin. In that latter concert Joseph Joachim was the soloist in Stanford’s Suite for Violin and Orchestra. Joachim also participated in the Cambridge concert of 1882, playing the Brahms concerto on that occasion. Following the first performance in 1882 there was another airing of the Second symphony at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in the following year. However, in his notes for Vernon Handley’s 1991 recording, Lewis Foreman states that he had been unable to trace any further performances until 1990, when the Ulster Orchestra gave it, presumably as a precursor to the Handley recording for Chandos.
The symphony bears the title ‘Elegiac’ and Stanford prefaced the score with four stanzas from Tennyson’s poem, In Memoriam. However, I’m bound to say that I find it hard to detect any elegiac tone in the music itself. The first movement is marked Allegro appassionato. It’s a vigorous movement in which one feels the music is moving forward pretty constantly, culminating in a dramatic coda.
The main theme of the second movement, a Largo espressivo, is rightly described by annotator Richard Whitehouse, as “both graceful and expressive.” This is rather lovely music, which consistently displays a singing quality. This is followed by a genuine scherzo. The outer sections of this quite short movement display a drive that is Beethoven-like. In between is encased a brief lyrical trio but it’s noticeable that even here the timpani maintain the rhythmic pulse underneath the music, albeit quietly, for much of the time.
The finale opens with an adagio introduction that has a decidedly Brahmsian feel. Once the main allegro is reached that section opens with some delightful wind writing after which the music surges along with no little purpose. This finale has genuine drive and momentum and it builds to a jubilant coda in which, once again, I hear the influence of Brahms.
The Fifth symphony dates from 1894 and Stanford drew his inspiration from two poems by John Milton (1608-1674). He inscribed several stanzas from each in the score and, helpfully, Naxos include these verses in the English version of the booklet notes.
The principal subject of the first movement, ushered in by the woodwind at 1:45, is rather jolly. However, there had been quite a degree of urgency to the brief introduction and this urgency remains as a kind of background presence underpinning the essential joviality of the movement as a whole. The music has constant vitality and is fresh and enjoyable to hear. For the second movement Stanford follows the precedent of Brahms by writing an intermezzo, which bears the Brahmsian indication Allegretto grazioso. Lewis Foreman described this movement in his note for the Chandos-Handley recording as “a gently pastoral minuet”. That’s not quite how it comes across in this present performance, however. Lloyd-Jones adopts a slightly faster speed than Handley – he takes 6:28 against Handley’s 6:56 – and thereby gives the music quite a different character. I wouldn’t presume to say which approach is better. To be truthful, I think both work in their own way though I have a marginal preference for the way the movement goes in Handley’s hands. The bottom line is that both conductors are successful in bringing out the genial character of the music.
The third movement, Andante molto tranquillo, was inspired by Il penseroso. Richard Whitehouse describes this movement as “searching” and I agree. It begins with some fine, expansive string writing, which is gradually enriched by the addition of woodwind and horns. This is Stanford at his noble, expansive best. At 3:47 Stanford introduces new material, with flute and clarinet appropriately to the fore as he responds to Milton’s lines about the nightingale, beginning “Sweet bird that shunn’st the noise of folly.” This material is developed for a while until, after a majestic passage for brass (around 6:00) the opening lyrical material returns, but this time in even richer guise and it’s with this that Stanford brings a most impressive movement to a close.
There’s a strange opening to the finale, featuring quiet, stabbing chords. At 0:33 a restless melody in dotted rhythm appears, first on the strings and then taken up by the winds but the music doesn’t really seem to get into its stride until about 1:20. As the movement unfolds the tone becomes more assertive though those stabbing chords keep cropping up. The last of Milton’s stanzas quoted by Stanford begins “There let the pealing organ blow” and Stanford does indeed add an organ to the orchestral palette (at 8:10) though its initial entry is quiet, just gently underpinning the orchestra. At 10:34 the full orchestra and organ intone a majestic chorale and one thinks that this is the Big Finish. Not so. The music winds down and Stanford brings the movement instead to a rich, luminous but quiet conclusion, which I find very satisfying and which aptly echoes Milton’s words:
Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heav’n before mine eyes.
It’s not easy to place these two symphonies. Neither is the equal of Elgar’s symphonies but they are far from negligible and these admirable performances under the convincing leadership of David Lloyd-Jones confirm that they do not deserve the neglect into which they have fallen. Lloyd-Jones obtains fine playing from the Bournemouth orchestra and, as with the previous issue in this series, they have been accorded warm yet detailed sound.
This is another distinguished instalment in this Stanford cycle. Vernon Handley’s pioneering set (Chandos) is most certainly not displaced but these Naxos recordings, and this latest one in particular, can stand proudly shoulder to shoulder beside them. Collectors who bought the earlier issue of the Fourth and Seventh symphonies should not hesitate to add this companion volume to their shelves. More please!
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International
Stanford: Symphonies no 2 and 5 / Lloyd-Jones
$19.99
CD
Naxos
Oct 30, 2007
8570289
EVENSONG LIVE 2019 - ANTHEMS AND CANTICLES
KING'S COLLEGE
Available as
CD
$11.99
Sep 13, 2019
King's College Recordings continues it's Evensong Live series with a new collection of popular anthems and canticles by British composers. Recorded live across 2018 and 2019 during choral services at the famous chapel, this album includes beloved pieces by Hubert Parry, William Walton, Charles Villiers Stanford, William Byrd, Judith Weir and Gerald Finzi.
SOMM Recordings’ historic complete survey of Charles Villiers Stanford’s String Quartets by the Dante Quartet reaches its end with a third volume focusing on Nos. 1 and 2, and the first recording of No. 6. Already acclaimed as a composer of choral music, Stanford came relatively late to the string quartet form, composing his first two at the age of 39 in 1891. Six more followed over the next three decades, including the Op. 122 String Quartet, No. 6 in 1910. This final volume features the early String Quartets, Opp. 44 (No. 1) and 45 (No. 2) which share a concern for meticulous use of individual instrument voices and a leaning towards lyricism. Allusions to Beethoven and Mozart are contained within Stanford’s own beautifully crafted music. Heard here in its premiere recording, the Sixth String Quartet is a work of rich contrasts, restless energy and some of Stanford’s most expressive writing for the medium. Volume I (SOMMCD 0160) was admired as “an excellent disc in every respect” (MusicWeb International), applauded as “most enterprising and thoroughly likeable” (Classical Ear) and acclaimed “a really worthwhile release” (Gramophone). Volume II (SOMMCD 0185) was described as “essential listening... SOMM and the Dantes have broken important new ground with impressive commitment” by Gramophone and by Limelight as being “played with great élan and sensitivity by the excellent Dante Quartet”.
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REVIEW:
The Dante Quartet play splendidly throughout the album, with noticeably clean articulation and gratifying intonation. Unerringly accomplished, these Dante performances, combined with spirited interpretations that breathe vitality and enthusiasm, would pass the most rigorous examination. The engineering team, recording in St Nicholas Parish Church, Thames Ditton, has provided first class sound quality. Stanford biographer Jeremy Dibble has written the booklet notes. Lovers of British music, and Stanford in particular, need not hesitate in acquiring this superb album.
Stanford: Partsongs, Pastorals, and Folksongs / Christophers, The Sixteen
Coro
Available as
CD
$18.99
$14.99
Sep 06, 2024
Recognizing the centenary of the Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford's death, this new album from The Sixteen includes a number of premiere recordings of his Irish Folksongs and Partsongs.
Stanford is celebrated both nationally and internationally as a composer of great diversity. He composed a substantial number of concert works, including seven symphonies, but he is best-remembered for his choral works. Stanford's writing for voices is exquisite and his imaginative storytelling is ever-present in his Irish Folksongs where he captures everything from fiery revenge to passionate love with equal effectiveness.
Stanford's dedication to the poetry of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge also stands out-he was drawn to the lyricism of her poetry and the imagery she conjures up-something that is clearly heard in his Opus 127 settings. Much of her poetry is marked by a sense of loss and change, nowhere better portrayed than in The Guest with its unsettling narrative.
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Stanford: Partsongs, Pastorals, and Folksongs / Christophers, The Sixteen
$18.99
$14.99
CD
Coro
Sep 06, 2024
COR16207
Stanford: Children's Songs / Whately, Brynmor John, Allan
SOMM Recordings
Available as
CD
$20.99
$15.99
Sep 02, 2022
SOMM Recordings continues its widely acclaimed championing of the music of Charles Villiers Stanford with a captivating collection of his Children’s Songs by mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and baritone Gareth Brynmor John, accompanied by pianist Susie Allan. Including numerous first recordings and the first complete album release of his setting of 14-year-old Helen Douglas Adam’s enchanting Songs from the Elfin Pedlar, it throws revealing new light on an important but largely overlooked aspect of Stanford’s output. Stanford, as his biographer and British music authority Jeremy Dibble comments in his authoritative notes, “was very much alive to the importance of children’s participation in music” following the transformative introduction of signing to the school curriculum in 1870. This delightful compendium of songs intended for children reveals the composer to be as acutely sensitive to his eclectic choice of texts as to his intended audience. It features premiere recordings of the early, Robert Louis Stevenson-set A Child’s Garland of Songs (Op.30), the mid-period Four Songs (Op.112) and later Six Songs (Op.175), together with seven other standalone songs, including the simple pastoral message of Summer’s Rain and Winter’s Snow and delightfully capricious Fairy Lures. SOMM’s previous Stanford recordings include his String Quintets (SOMMCD 0623) and complete String Quartets (SOMMCD 0160, 0185, 0607) with the Dante Quartet, praised by Gramophone for their “ardent, alert and thoroughly lived-in performances”, and Partsongs with the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir led by Paul Spicer (SOMMCD 0128), which Limelight described as “excellent... beautifully sung”. SOMM’s world-premiere recording of The Travelling Companion (SOMMCD 274-2) was hailed “a landmark” by Gramophone, who lauded Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense (SOMMCD 0627) as “a hugely enjoyable anthology... production values and presentation leave nothing to be desired”.
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Stanford: Children's Songs / Whately, Brynmor John, Allan
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$15.99
CD
SOMM Recordings
Sep 02, 2022
SOMMCD 0655
Stanford: Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense / Williams, Way, West
SOMM Recordings
Available as
CD
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$15.99
Jan 22, 2021
SOMM RECORDINGS announces a major new recording of songs by Charles Villiers Stanford including the first complete recording of Songs of Faith and 12 first recordings of other distinctively vital songs. Songs of Love, Faith and Nonsense continues SOMM’s widely acclaimed commitment to Stanford’s music with baritone Roderick Williams, tenor James Way (making his SOMM debut) and pianist Andrew West throwing revealing new light on his gift for word setting and the variety of his responses to matters of emotional ardor, spiritual fervency and the sublime nonsense poems of Edward Lear. Setting poems by Tennyson and Walt Whitman, Songs of Faith demonstrates Stanford’s ability to give unique expression to the profound and the arcane with music of dramatic force and harmonic ingenuity. Three songs by Robert Bridges (librettist for Stanford’s oratorio Eden) and four songs from the opera Shamus O’Brien tap into Stanford’s Irish roots to colorful and evocative effect. Composed to mark his 25th wedding anniversary and receiving its first recording, The Triumph of Love sets five sonnets by his close cousin, Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes, in richly executed settings. The delightful Nonsense Rhymes taken from Edward Lear’s inimitably playful, poignant and pointed limericks show a different side to Stanford, a “highly articulate, dry humor like many literary Irishmen of his era”, as Jeremy Dibble says in his authoritative booklet notes.
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Stanford: Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense / Williams, Way, West
$20.99
$15.99
CD
SOMM Recordings
Jan 22, 2021
SOMMCD 0627
Sirens' Song / Christophers, The Sixteen
Coro
Available as
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$10.49
Sep 01, 2023
What would singing be without words? When you combine wonderful poetry with exquisite music, the result is magical. In a rare break from the sacred collections they are famed for, this album from The Sixteen features a whole program of secular music devoted to English partsongs. From Stanford’s cycle of Eight Partsongs based on the sparing yet infectious poetry of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge to Bridges’ lyrically descriptive writing in Finzi’s Seven Poems of Robert Bridges and Imogen Holst’s six idyllic partsongs Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow using verses by John Keats, each setting captures the mood of the poem brilliantly.
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Sirens' Song / Christophers, The Sixteen
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CD
Coro
Sep 01, 2023
COR16198
Stanford: Mass "Via Victrix" & At The Abbey Gate / Partington, BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Lyrita
Available as
CD
$20.99
May 03, 2019
In 1919 Stanford chose to compose a setting of the mass to commemorate the allied victory, hoping perhaps that the work might be attractive to choral societies. In terms of his music connected with the war, the Mass ‘Via Victrix 1914-1918’ Op. 173 would be his greatest and most substantial effort, and it would prove to be a canvas to equal similar large-scale choral tours de force such as his Requiem Op. 63 (1897), Te Deum Op. 66 (1898) and Stabat Mater Op. 96 (1907), all ambitiously conceived for chorus, four soloists, orchestra and organ. Bearing the adapted Latin dedication ( ‘Transiverunt per ignem et aqua et eduxisti in refrigerium’ [“(They) went through fire and water and thou has brought (them) into a wealthy place”?] taken from Psalm 66 verse 12 (from Tyndale’s translation), the work was dedicated to those who made the greatest sacrifice in defence of their country. The mass was therefore intended as a work of thanksgiving, of celebration for the final victory, but equally one which looked into the heart of the nation, to commiserate with those who grieved, to pray for those whose sense of loss was unconsolable, and to urge for a spirit of renewal in the face of the hardships and sorrows the nation had had to endure. In this sense Stanford’s work stood at the vanguard of other cathartic expressions of war grief such as John Foulds’ A World Requiem (1921), Delius’s Requiem (1914, but not performed until 1922) and Arthur Bliss’s Morning Heroes (1930). When news was made known of the unveiling of the Cenotaph and the interment of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey in October 1920, the Right Hon. Mr Justice Charles John Darling (1st Baron Darling) published a poem ‘At the Abbey Gate’ in The Times on 26 October (under the initials C.J.D.) as part of a larger article ‘To the Unknown Dead’ announcing the special nature of the ceremony on 11 November. Through a desire to commemorate this major national occasion, Stanford decided to set Darling’s poem as a march for chorus, solo baritone and orchestra. At the Abbey Gate Op. 177 was completed in November 1920 in the days following the great national ceremony.
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REVIEWS:
Rescued from obscurity nearly a century after its composition, Stanford’s large-scale post-war mass is definitely worth checking out. Impassioned performances here.
– BBC Music Magazine
Symphonically paced and nuanced in its construction, Stanford’s Mass receives an impressive reading from Adrian Partington, his four soloists, and the wonderful voices of the BBC National Chorus of Wales with BBC NOW. Thanks to the editorial work and tireless advocacy of Stanford scholar Jeremy Dibble, this CD again makes available an important British choral work that has lain largely forgotten for over a century.
– Choir & Organ
Stanford: Mass "Via Victrix" & At The Abbey Gate / Partington, BBC National Orchestra of Wales
$20.99
CD
Lyrita
May 03, 2019
SRCD382
Stanford: Piano Quintet; Fantasies for Horn and for Clarinet
Capriccio
Available as
CD
$21.99
$16.99
May 07, 2021
Nowadays William Stanford's fame is largely based on his teaching activities in London while his reputation as a "great composer" has waned considerably. The list of his students reads like a veritable Who's-Who of British music of the 19th and 20th century. Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge and several more were taught by Stanford. His œuvre covered a wide variety of sacred and secular music and his works carry within them elements of Irish folklore and mysticism. His many chamber works have a definite air of Brahms about them... never by way of direct quote or paraphrase, but by making Brahms' style his own.
This is an enjoyable and rewarding CD. The performances, which are presented in good sound, are extremely accomplished and I hope that this CD will help to widen the reach of Stanford’s music beyond the British Isles. As I indicated earlier, it’s heartening to see young musicians from Berlin embracing these works and performing them with such skill and commitment.
-- MusicWeb International
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Stanford: Piano Quintet; Fantasies for Horn and for Clarinet
$21.99
$16.99
CD
Capriccio
May 07, 2021
C5381
Howells, Taverner et al.: Eastertide Evensong / Nethsingha, Choir of St. John's College
Signum Classics
Available as
CD
$19.99
$14.99
Apr 15, 2022
Following from Ash Wednesday, this album is the second live Evensong album from the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge and marks the next great season of the Church’s Year, Eastertide. This celebration of Jesus’s resurrection also initially spans forty days, taking us up to Ascension Day, and culminates on the fiftieth day with the Feast of Pentecost. Where the previous album reflected the tradition of using no organ from Ash Wednesday until the Gloria of the Easter Vigil, the instrument is fully utilized here by the Chapel’s organ scholars Glen Dempsey and James Anderson Besant. The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is one of the finest collegiate choirs in the world, known and loved by millions from its broadcasts, concert tours and recordings. Founded in the 1670s, the Choir is known for its distinctive rich, warm sound, its expressive interpretations and its breadth of repertoire. Alongside these musical characteristics, the Choir is particularly proud of its happy, relaxed and mutually supportive atmosphere.
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Howells, Taverner et al.: Eastertide Evensong / Nethsingha, Choir of St. John's College
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