DR. STANFORD'S "THE REVENGE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9202, 3 November 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

DR. STANFORD'S "THE REVENGE."

This work will be performed by the Ponsonby Choral Society (Mr. T. T. Trimnell, Mus. Bac., Oxon., conductor) at St. James' Hall on Monday. A few particulars regarding the composer and the work will be of interest.

Dr. C. Villiers Stanford was born in Dublin in 1552. He studied composition under A. O'Leary and Sir Robert Stewart, and subsequently under Reinecke, at Leipsic, and Kiel, at Berlin. He matriculated at Cambridge, graduated there with classical honours in 1874, and proceeded MA. in 1877. The degree of Doctor of Music, honoris can-tri, was conferred upon him by the Oxford University in ISS.'J. His compositions include the three-act opera.-*. " The Veiled Prophet." produced at Hanover in 1881 : " Savonarola," at Hamburg in 1884; and "The Canterbury Pilgrims," at Durry Lane in the same year; an oratorio, "The Three Holy Children the 46th Psalm, and church music, symphonies, overtures, entr' acres, and serenades for orchestra. In chamber music he has published a string quintet and quartete, sonatas for pianoforte and violin, pianoforte and 'cello : intermezzos for pianoforte and clarionet, and music for two pianofortes, as also many songs. As conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society, he has stimulated music there to a remarkable degree of activity, and made that society a power in the country. He is also professor of composition and orchestral playing at the Royal College of Music. Dr. Stanford's choral setting of Tennyson's "The Revenge, a Ballad of the Fleet," was written for the Leeds Festival of 1886. The following description of it is from the pen of one of the leading writers on music:—"The setting derives immense advantage from its subject. The blood must be sluggish indeed which does not quicken its flow when the story of Sir Richard Grenville's deed is recited. One almost doubts the unassailable record of history on reading how the little Revenge, with half her crew sick, sailed intothe midst of the Spanish fleet, and fought them successfully the whole night long, beating off one big ship after another, till the Dons, their guns silent, gathered round and contemplated their adversary in mute amazement. Tennyson, as everybody knows, has told the story in spirited verse, and now Stanford has set it to spirited music. We expect that this choral ballad will become a fhvourite with choirs and public alike. There is a bright tone of manhood in the music as well as in the words, none the less because, when devising his themes, the composer adopted the traditional style and character of the nautical ditty. Hence the melodies are of that breezy, hearty sort, redolent of the sea, and smacking unmistakably of the forecastle, which alone can be regarded as appropriate to such a case. The more descriptive passages, dealing with the fight, &c., are powerfully written, and here the orchestra comes into play with advantage. We have no hesitation in saying that nothing more fresh and spontaneous has been given to the world for many years. The vigorous treatment of the impassioned parts of the narrative, the subdued intensity of feeling underlying the quieter portions, and the appropriate orchestration throughout excited the audience to a pitch of enthusiasm which the appearance of the composer on the platform even twice over could scarcely calm down. Dr. Stanford may fairly congratulate himself upon having shown us successfully not only that there is a real English school of music, but that there are composers able and willing to perpetuate it."