It might be, though it doesn’t sound to be founded in grief maybe it’s a prayer for peace. I wonder if it’s a prayer for the fallen. Dibble describes it as “very much a prayer”. The middle movement has the title ‘Benedictus’. Stanford’s writing has lots of energy and forward momentum. Though there are some passages of relative repose the music seems almost always to be restless. The music is powerful and emotionally charged, even when the dynamics recede somewhat. Dibble says, the sonata “was conceived as a recognition of Britain’s sacrifice.” The first movement is based on an old hymn tune, ‘St Mary’ which had become associated with a Lenten hymn ‘O Lord, turn not Thy face from me’. One can imagine that Stanford, like Parry, must have been affected by the news of so many bright former pupils at the Royal College of Music either dying or being wounded at the Front and, as Prof. It was composed towards the end of 1917 when the conduct of World War I was going badly.
Jeremy Dibble sets the piece firmly in context for us. The Third Sonata is the centrepiece of this volume and mightily impressive it proves to be.
ESCALA DORICO SERIES
Volume 1 of this series ( review), which I have yet to hear, included the first two of Stanford’s five sonatas for organ, both of which were written in 1917. One of the pieces on Daniel Cook’s programme, the Prelude on ‘Jesu dulcis memoria’ comes from Stanford’s first years at St John’s but the rest of the selection dates from rather later in his career. Indeed, in 1870 he had become the first organ scholar at Cambridge University when he was admitted to Queen’s College. The booklet essay is by the leading expert on Stanford – and Parry – Jeremy Dibble, and he points out in his opening sentence that the organ “always remained a central feature of Stanford’s career as a composer and practical musician.” Much of his early training was as a church organist in Dublin and then he made a name for himself as Organist of St John’s College, Cambridge (1873-1892). There has been a very welcome reawakening of interest in Stanford’s music in the last twenty-odd years – at least on CD - so it’s high time that his organ music received its due. My colleague, John France, who is very well versed in Stanford’s music and in British music generally, made a similar admission when he reviewed Volume 1 of Daniel Cook’s projected survey of Stanford’s complete output for the instrument. I was somewhat relieved, therefore, to find that I’m not alone in this. I know and admire quite a lot of Stanford’s music, primarily his orchestral and vocal pieces, but I have to confess that his organ music has rather passed me by. Te Deum Laudamus – Fantasia Op.116 No.1 (ca 1909) Prelude on ‘Jesu dulcis memoria’ (1879 - ed. Sonata No.3 ‘Brittanica’ in D minor, Op.152 (1917) Six Preludes and Postludes, Set 1, Op.101 (1907)
Sir Charles Villiers STANFORD (1852-1924)įantasia and Fugue in D minor, Op.103 (1907) Support us financially by purchasing this from
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