Welcome

Welcome to the Stanford Society web site. We are developing this site into a major resource for information concerning the composer Charles Villiers Stanford.

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852- 1924) was one of the leading musicians of his generation and had a profound effect on the development and history of English music as a performer, conductor, composer, teacher and writer.

Born in Dublin to a musical family, Stanford attended Queens’ College Cambridge as an organ scholar. He subsequently studied composition in Germany, became organist at Trinity College Cambridge in 1873 and Conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society in 1875. He was appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London in 1883 (a position that he held for more than forty years) and Professor of Music at Cambridge in 1888. He subsequently held appointments as Conductor of the Bach Choir in London, The Leeds Philharmonic Society and The Leeds Festival

Today Stanford is largely remembered for his songs and religious music as well as his influence on several generations of composition students at the Royal College of Music. These included Sir Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Rebecca Clarke, Ivor Gurney, Gustav Holst, Herbert Howells, John Ireland, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Wood. There has been a revival of interest in Stanford’s music over the past two decades and an increasing number of his works are now available in recordings.