Morris Dance

Born in Dublin in 1852, Charles Villiers Stanford bears the burden of being the most successful and most performed Irish art composer of his generation. His name is essentially synonymous with late-Romantic Irish concert music. After his death he was known primarily as an influential teacher via his tenures at the Royal College of Music and Cambridge (Holst and Vaughan Williams are his most famous pupils). A semi-revival seems to be underway, yet despite a prolific output—he published over 200 compositions—only Stanford’s Anglican choral music has retained a regular place in the performance repertory. How many of us have heard even one of his seven symphonies? ten operas? eight string quartets? This weekend you will have a chance to hear both sides of this composer’s output: the familiar (choral music) on Saturday, and the obscure (a portion of his Cello Sonata No. 2) on Sunday.
Stanford’s musical training began at home at a very early age. By the time he was 10 he had moved to London, and he eventually earned himself a scholarship to Cambridge, where he later held posts as organist and choir master. In such a position Stanford had both motive and opportunity for creating choral music. Justorum animae remains one of his most popular compositions, and rightly so. Its drawn-out phrase endings show the English gift for exploiting resonance; and in this case, such fermatas punctuate textual breaks in the manner of a Bach chorale. Stanford moves back and forth between homophony and imitation (usually beginning in the bass), and relishes the chance to darken the mood and build dramatic intensity around “tormentum.” The Morris Dance refers to an English folk dance performed by groups executing choreographed steps. Its history reaches back to the late 1400s, and in all probability the name derives from the moresco or “Moorish Dance,” part of an annual event in Spain and Italy marking the expulsion of the Moors from western Europe.

(c) Jason Stell