Martyn Brabbins, the conductor on this album, is the Music Director of the English National Opera and is known for his advocacy of British composers, having conducted hundreds of premieres.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Stanford's Requiem focuses on themes of consolation and renewal, similar to Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, rather than the terrors of judgment and damnation often found in other Requiem settings.
Composition History
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, an Irish-born composer known for Anglican church music, wrote this Requiem, a Catholic Mass, in memory of his friend, the neo-classicist painter Lord Frederic Leighton.
Compositional Technique
The opening Introit of Stanford's Requiem introduces a halting, descending theme that serves as a unifying motif, returning in various forms throughout the entire work.
Notable Performances
Stanford's Requiem premiered in 1897 at the Birmingham Triennial Festival, making it the last major choral commission for the festival before the 1900 debut of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.
Composer Biography
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was a highly influential teacher at London's Royal College of Music, where his students included prominent British composers like Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
