Stanford, CHARLES VILLIERS

Stanford, CHARLES VILLIERS, musical composer, was born at Dublin on 30th September 1852. He entered at Queen's College, Cambridge, and in 1873 was appointed organist at Trinity College there. Except his operas, most of his works have been produced at one or other of the musical festivals in the provincial capitals of England — Gloucester, Birmingham, Leeds, Norwich, &c. His best and most successful productions have been the choral settings of Tennyson's Revenge (1886) and the Voyage of Maeldune (1889); the oratorios The Three Holy Children (1885) and Eden (1891); the operas The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (1881), Savonarola (1884), and The Canterbury Pilgrims (1884); an orchestral serenade; a couple of symphonies, particularly the Elegiac symphony (1882); and some pieces for the violin and pianoforte. In 1882 he was appointed professor of Composition and Orchestral Playing in the Royal College of Music, and in 1887 succeeded Sir G. A. Macfarren as professor of Music at Cambridge. The opera Shamus O'Brien was produced in 1896.