At one o’clock on Friday 12 July, a steady stream of enthusiastic singers arrived at the chapel of Queens’ College, Cambridge for a weekend of singing choral music by Charles Villiers Stanford, who died 100 years ago this year, under the expert direction of Hugh Morris. 

The first day was taken with learning music for an informal concert at Trinity College Chapel, where Stanford was Director of Music. This included Song to the soul, a very dramatic setting of words by Walt Whitman, Heraclitus, one of Stanford’s many partsongs, and ending with Stanford Magnificat in C. The small audience were very appreciative. 

The evening finished with a wonderful organ recital at Queens’, given by Anthony Gritten. Playing a variety of Stanford’s organ music, including the monumental 4th Sonata, Anthony’s performance was breathtaking. 

 Saturday was taken learning the music for Evensong later in the day, and Holy Communion on Sunday. Evensong included For lo! I raise up, which taxed most of the singers, but they rose to the challenge and managed a committed performance. The Canticles were the dramatic setting in A and the responses were The Stanford Responses, arranged and adapted by Professor Jeremy Dibble, who provided firstly an interesting look at some Stanford manuscripts from the RSCM Archives, and then the evening lecture, which concentrated on his orchestral and opera music and was fascinating and absorbing. 

Holy Communion on Sunday morning was at Great St Mary’s, opposite King’s College. The setting was Communion in C and F, and the performance of the anthem Beati quorum via was one of the highlights of the weekend. 

The course participants left Cambridge having learnt a wide variety of Stanford’s choral music and much more about the composer himself. Hugh Morris’s direction ‘provided a good balance between making it fun, but also working on improving the singing’. Special mention should be made of our amazing organist, Alex Trigg, who was drafted in at the last moment but managed all the notes in For lo! I raise up with aplomb.