Music Notes

The prelude for the Fifth Sunday of Easter is “Solemn Melody” by Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941).   Sir Henry became organist of The Temple Church, London, in 1898 and stayed for the next twenty years.  At The Temple Church for the last four years of his tenure he had joint directorship with George Thalben Ball (1896-1987) before he finally handed over the reins in 1923.  Sir Henry studied composition with Parry and received encouragement and practical help from Elgar.  In a wide-ranging career his true fame came as a choir-trainer and, most significantly, as an educationalist and popular broadcaster.  "Solemn Melody" his most famous composition, was written in 1908 for the organ and strings.  Today we hear John Ebenezer West's (1863-1929) arrangement for organ.  The repeat of the melody, which develops to a climax for full organ, in enlivened by reharmonization and variations in the part-writing.

 

The postlude is a “Postlude for Eastertide” written by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) for a collection titled SIX SHORT PRELUDES AND POSTLUDES, Opus 101.  Charles was an Anglo-Irish composer, teacher and conductor during the late Romantic era.  Charles was one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music where he taught composition. Among his pupils were Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams.  The postlude is influenced by his Irish background.