Professor Stanford.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 464, 19 April 1890, Page 6

Professor Stanford.

• [all rights, reserved.] Charles Villiere Stanford, Mus. Doc., Professoi* of Music, Cambridge University, was born at Dublin, December 2nd, 1852. He inherited from his father, an officer in the Court of Chancery, musical gifts so exceptional as to warrant their assiduous cultivation from childhood. Not, however, to the prejudice of “ the humanities,” the good fruit of which resulted in classical honours at Cambridge, and the acquirement of a literary' taste which has often served him in good stead in the choice of subjects for composition. At Cambridge he migrated from Queen’s College to Trinity, where, whilst still an undergraduate, he succeeded Dr. J. L. Hopkins as organist in 1873. He was married to Miss J. Wetton on the Bth April, 1878. His , first musical teachers were Mr A. O’Leary and ' • Sir*“R/d P. v .Btewarh, It be receded/; in 'honour of Trinity College, that the actual services of their new organist were, held .temporarily in abeyance, to enable him to spend the best part of three years in Germany, and acquire a deeper knowledge of his art under Reinecke at Leipzig, and under Keil at Berlin. The liberality of the college was well bestowed. By foreign travel, by all the advantages consequent on a residence and study in such centres of art as Berlin, Leipzig/and Dresden, Dr. Stanford escaped the limitation Common uo musicians who, for lack of such opportunities, too often sink : into a groove, and become local celebrities, and nothing more. Under Reinecke and Kiel, Dr. Stanford acquired a mastery of musical form, and a power of orchestral writing, which are conspicuous in all his larger works. In Germany, where he learnt so much, his style and individuality have obtained full recognition. Two out of his three operas were brought out in thab country ‘ The- Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,’ at -Hanover r in, 1881, and ‘ Savonarola ’ at Hamburg, in 1884. Within a fortnight -of the last event, he produced ‘ Thp Canterbury Pilgrims,’ with the Carl Rosa Company, at-Drury Lane, London. Dr. Stanford’s popularity, however, rests more securely on liis symphonies, on his cantatas and on his musical versions of poems, which seem best calculated to call forth the exercise of his pure taste and profound scholarship. His setting -of 1, -Walt Whitman’s ‘ Elegiac Ode to Abraham Lincoln,’ of Tennyson’s ballad ‘ The .Revenge,’ and. ‘The Voyage of Maelduno ’ (the two last written for Leeds Festivals), are great achievements, which have been heartily acknowledged by the ..public, it is satisfactory to watch the career of two such distinguished friends as,Dr. Stanford and Dr. Hubert Parry/ and 1 to observe that in each of their latest efforts, they are going on ‘from strength to strength.’ The success of the Oxford and Cambridge composers at the recent Festival at Leeds is an event for ,a nation to be proud of. ~ This is not the-placd for a catalogue of ; Dr. Stanford's compositions. His versath. lity is remarkable. His works range irom oratorio and symphony to an edition of ‘ Fifty Iris[i Melodies, with Accompaniments,’ and ‘ A Song-. Book,for Schools.’ It may be said of him, vHfchout flattery, that he has ‘ touched nothing which he has’, dot adorned,’ for, if his'.dram&tfc works appear somewhat deficieht in;-t>jie element of popularity, they contain abundant, proofs of learning and inventive skill. When the Royal College of Music was founded, Dr. Stanford became the. of Composition and Orchestral Playing. He is Conductor of;the ‘Bach-Choir ’in London, and of the ‘ University , .Musical Society’ at Cambridge, which, udder his direction, is. honourably distinguished for having given first performances inEngland of Schumann’s Third Part of ‘Faust/ Kiel’s ‘Requiem/ Parry’s ‘Prometheus/ etc. Dr. Stanford is eminent both ’as an organist and as a writer of Church, music ; he has also been called upon to furnish incidental music at Cambridge for the "performances of the ‘Eumenides’ of /Eschylus, and the ‘(Edipus, Tyrannus' of Sophocles. In weighing an artist’s claims, academic and social distinctions must be pub out of the reckoning; but those who see in the coupling of such names. as Purcell and Dryden, Milton anc/Handel, a mutual consecration, of the sister arts, will note with pleasure that Dr. - Stanford dedicates his musical version of * The Voyage of Maeldune ’ to Lord Tennyson ‘ in all gratitude and affection.’ Dr. Stanford has made his mark on the age—he, is an honour to Ireland, his native country, and to England, the land' of his adoption. With such musical representatives of the three kingdoms as Stanford, Parry, and Mackenzie, we can afford to smile when the AngloSaxon race is called unmusical. They form a triumvirate of national strength ; the dignity of English art is safe in their keeping. .