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Charles Villiers Stanford 1852–1924

Charles Villiers Stanford was a native of Dublin, where he began his musical life as a pupil of Arthur O’Leary and Sir Robert Stewart. He may be said to have lisped in numbers, for several of his songs and pianoforte pieces appeared in the glory of print while he was still a child. His first composition was a March, written when he was eight years old, and played at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, a year or two later. In 1870 he matriculated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, as an organ scholar, and in 1873 was appointed organist at Trinity College, in succession to J. L. Hopkins, ‘migrating’ to that college, and taking his degree there.

As conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society he did remarkably good work, giving first English performances of Schumann’s Faust, Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody and C minor Symphony, &c., as well as reviving long-neglected music by Purcell and Handel. From 1874-76 he received annual leave of absence for study abroad working with Reinecke at Leipsic, and later with Kiel at Berlin. In 1887 he succeeded Sir G. A. Macfarren as Cambridge Professor of Music, a post he held until a few months before his death. As stated above, he was appointed to the staff of the Royal College of Music at its founding, being professor of composition and conductor of the orchestra. He continued his work as organist of Trinity College until 1892.

As a conductor he early made his mark, and in addition to countless Festival and other engagements in England and on the Continent, he held the post of conductor to the Bach Choir (1885-1902) and Leeds Philharmonic Society (1897-1910). He received the honorary degree of Mus. Doc. at Oxford in 1883, and at Cambridge in 1888. The honour of knighthood was conferred on him in 1901, and in 1904 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts at Berlin.

As a teacher of composition his influence was deep and widespread, a large proportion of prominent composers having been among his pupils. The best testimony to his work in this department is the fact that, stringent as he was, he developed rather than suppressed the individuality of those who studied with him. What trace of Stanford is there in the music of such widely diverse composers as, for example, Ireland, Vaughan Williams, Frank Bridge, Holst, and Hurlstone? He provided the best of answers to the statement that ‘composition cannot be taught.’ It is, of course, as teachable a subject as any other practical department of music, and it could hardly be better taught than by Stanford.

The distinguishing quality in Stanford the composer was his versatility. This country has surely not produced his equal so far as range is concerned. There is no branch in which he did not do work varying from the merely sound to the first-rate – oratorio, opera, orchestral and chamber music, works for various solo instruments, choral works from the largest to the smallest size for church and concert use, songs for grown-ups and infants, and countless arrangements of folk-music. His numbered works approach the two-hundred mark, and we believe a good deal is still in manuscript. As is inevitable in so vast an output there is much that is unoriginal, but impeccable workmanship is always evident. The matter may be perfunctory, the manner never. Young composers in a hurry, who despise the technique of writing, should learn a lesson from the fact that in a surprisingly large number of cases Stanford’s workmanship carries him through. So unerring was his knowledge of effect – which is, of course, merely a branch of a composer’s technique – that many a work, uninspired and dull on paper, ‘comes off’ so well in performance as to reach a degree of success denied to better music less well written.

Like most British composers, his larger compositions have rarely had the attention they deserve. Yet few will deny that his symphonies and other orchestral works are infinitely better, and far more attractive, than stacks of things that are played to rags year in, year out. And are not Shamus O’Brien and The Critic still worthy of the attention of our opera companies?

Among choralists his position is secure. No church choir is likely to exhaust the interest and effect of his service music and anthems. His Service in B flat, with its skilful and significant use of fragments of plain-chant, was something new in English church music, and wears as too little of the repertory does. Choral societies, large and small, will long revel in The Revenge, Phaudrig Crohoore, and The Last Post.

In the part-song he excelled. There are few better examples of this delightful form than The Blue Bird, Like Desert Woods, Peace, come away, Heraclitus, and a dozen others of his best. And he was no less successful in unison and two-part songs for school use. Such things as The Lark’s Grave, and most of the settings of Stevenson’s Child’s Garden of Verses, are gems.

Two factors that count for much in his work are his fondness for the sea and his sense of humour. No other British composer has given us the sea as Stanford has done in The Revenge, The Battle of the Baltic, The Songs of the Sea, and the Songs of the Fleet.

His humour is largely of the allusive sort. The Critic is full of delicious quotations, and the songs contain many examples, some so subtle as to escape any but the attentive ear – e.g., the quotation from the Valkyrie ‘Fire Music’ in Daddy-long-legs. The Ode to Discord has its funny moments, but it set out to do the impossible – to burlesque music that is itself often merely a burlesque. As a result, much of it could pass muster as serious work in the ultra-modern style. In fact, the Ode is good evidence in support of a remark Stanford made to the writer at about this time: ‘Anybody can write in the extreme modern style,’ he said. ‘It’s largely a matter of having enough spare time to write lots of notes.’ Certainly, in this manner of writing notes for mere notes’ sake, no composer is less guilty than Stanford. His scores of all kinds are models of economy, though perhaps this quality is best shown in his songs, and above all in those written for children’s choirs. Here the accompaniment to a unison song will often be reduced to the slenderest dimensions – a simple counter-theme to the voice part, plus a single bass note; or a few detached three-note chords. But so skilful is the ‘placing’ of this tiny accompaniment that every note is important.

Although there is difference of opinion as to the value of Stanford’s instrumental works in the larger forms, there is unanimity as to his general high level when writing for voices. We believe there is ground for both difference and unanimity. In his instrumental music, he was prone, especially in his later years, to use somewhat mechanical methods of development and linking up. In song writing there is little or no temptation to this kind of weakness; apart from the exigencies of the text, mere literary taste alone will do much to keep a composer straight. As a song-composer Stanford ranks with the greatest of any period or country. He had not only the taste that prevented him from choosing poor words; he had also a happy knack of seeing possibilities in many poems that to the ordinary eye seemed unsuitable for musical setting. No other serious composer would have thought of setting such things as The Bold Unbiddable Child or The Crow, for example, or even Johneen, perhaps. Yet they are among the most ‘fetching’ things Stanford ever wrote.

But to start talking of Stanford’s songs is to be tempted into a detailed eulogy for which this is not the place. It must suffice now to express something of the gratitude and admiration of singers for the rich store he has given them. From The Fairy Lough to Eva Toole, from Trottin’ to the Fair to The Little Admiral, there are songs for everybody. No harder blow at the shop ballad has been dealt than by the popular success of such things as Stanford’s sea songs and arrangements of national airs, especially those of his native Ireland.

To-day, when new music streams from the press in such floods that nobody has time to take in more than a tithe of it, a composer so versatile and prolific as Stanford is apt to suffer from those very qualities. Inevitably there is a tendency to fasten on to his most easily negotiable works at the expense of the remainder. We believe that a revival of the bigger Stanford works will take place, and that it will show him to be of greater stature than was evident to most musicians during his life-time. But even without such a revival his name will stand high, not merely in the roll of British composers, but in that elect line where such national labels are rarely used.

Musical Times, May 1924