Blinded at age 2, John Stanley began desultory music
lessons when he was 7 and, after a false start,
progressed so quickly that he was made organist at a
nearby church when he was only 12. Stanley would grow
up to become the leading English organist of his day
and a major figure in London's musical scene, not only
as an instrumentalist but also as a composer in the
Handel style.
Stanley rose quickly in the English organ world;
already a veteran of the loft at age 22, he was made
organis...(+)
Blinded at age 2, John Stanley began desultory music
lessons when he was 7 and, after a false start,
progressed so quickly that he was made organist at a
nearby church when he was only 12. Stanley would grow
up to become the leading English organist of his day
and a major figure in London's musical scene, not only
as an instrumentalist but also as a composer in the
Handel style.
Stanley rose quickly in the English organ world;
already a veteran of the loft at age 22, he was made
organist to the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple
in 1734. His performances of his own organ voluntaries
there and at other churches drew large audiences more
curious about the music than the liturgy. He had
academic credentials, too; in 1729 he had become the
youngest person ever to have received a bachelor's of
music degree from Oxford.
Stanley married well in 1738; not only did his wife
bring a substantial dowry, but she brought a sister who
would eventually work as Stanley's amanuensis. Stanley
would write a fair amount of his own music, but he
supported himself mainly as a performer. He conducted
several Handel oratorios during the final decade of
that composer's life, and succeeded Handel in 1759 as
co-director of the Lenten oratorio season at Covent
Garden (oratorios replaced operas during Lent). Stanley
provided a couple of his own oratorios for this series,
but they were too imitative of the dead Handel to
achieve much success. Among his other appointments and
honors was succeeding William Boyce as Master of the
King's Band of Musicians in 1779, which led him to
compose more than a dozen birthday and New Year odes
for official ceremonies.
In his compositional style, Stanley was a transitional
figure between Handel and J.C. Bach; the change can be
seen by comparing Stanley's Opus 2 concertos, which
very much followed the Handel/Corelli model, to his
more elegant, less fugal, pre-Classical Opus 10
concertos of some three decades later. His organ
voluntaries, on the other hand, all composed fairly
early in his career, are clearly creatures of the
English Baroque era, hewing to standard formats and
requiring instruments of only modest resources.
Although this piece was originally written for Flute
(Recorder) and continuo, I created this arrangement for
Solo Viola and Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION