A Note from the Chairman – February 2022
Hats off to Finghin Collins and his team at the Galway Festival for putting on an outstanding programme of music, talks and a film relating to Stanford and a number of his contemporaries and leading students in Galway, Ireland during the weekend of January 21st to 23rd, 2022.
The Festival navigated through a number of Covid related challenges to bring together some of Ireland’s leading musicians in a celebration of both Stanford’s music and the work of a number of his students. Concert times had to be rearranged to end by 8.00pm and most of the weekend’s events were available via streaming.
Highlights included a performance of Stanford’s Sixth String Quartet by the Contempo Quartet and the Stanford Clarinet Sonata and Fantasy Number 2 for Clarinet Quintet both with John Finucane on the clarinet. It was also good to hear a selection of songs by Stanford and two of his female students, Rebecca Clarke and Muriel Herbert performed by soprano Sharon Carty accompanied by Finghin Collins. We also heard strong performances of Rebecca Clarke’s lovely Viola Sonata and Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s attractive Clarinet Quintet as well as William Hurlston’s Phantasy for String Quartet. The final work of the weekend was Stanford’s Serenade in F (Nonet) which was given a spirited performance by the nine required performers.
Those of us attending online were not able to see or hear a choral concert of part songs in St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church in Galway on the Saturday afternoon. This had an interesting programme and reports were that it was an excellent event.
The weekend also included two interesting talks by Jeremy Dibble, one on Stanford’s chamber music and the second on Stanford’s students featured in the weekend’s programme. There was also a showing of a documentary film entitled “ Samuel Coleridge Taylor and his Music in America”. This covered Coleridge Taylor’s life with a special focus on the reception of his music in America where he visited in 1904, 1906 and 1910 . He was received at the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Of particular interest was Coleridge-Taylor’s visit to the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut in 1910 at the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Stoeckel. It was here that he conducted his cantata Hiawatha with soloists, an orchestra of 75, and a chorus of more than 400. He subsequently composed a Violin Concerto for the Festival which was completed shortly before his death in 1912 at the age of 37. It was at the Norfolk Festival where Stanford was supposed to conduct the premiers of both his Second Piano Concerto and choral work Song to the Soul, in 1915. This visit was cancelled because of the sinking of the Lusitania on which Stanford had planned to travel. In the end he never visited America.
Both of Jeremy Dibble’s talks and a version of the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor documentary may still be available to view on YouTube.
