MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW Plain text for smartphones & printers

Support us financially by purchasing
this through MusicWeb
for £10 postage paid world-wide.

John STANLEY (1713-1786)
Six Organ Concertos, Op.10
No. 1 in E [8.24]; No. 2 in D [7.48]; No. 3 in B flat [9.05]; No. 4 in C minor [11.45]; No. 5 in A [6.58]; No. 6 in C [8.25]
Northern Sinfonia Orchestra/Gerald Gifford (organ)
rec. Hexham Abbey, Northumberland; no date given
CRD 3365 [53:50]

This, so far as I am aware, is the only recording that has ever been made of these concertos from John Stanley’s final years. Although the composer is fairly well known for his organ music, these concertos were published in 1775 for “organ, harpsichord or fortepiano” and – notwithstanding the obvious wish to appeal to the widest possible market – appear to have sold so badly that only one set of orchestral parts is now known to exist. These parts, in the library of the Marquis of Exeter at Burghley House, Stamford, were used as the basis for this recording, and the cadenzas, Gerald Gifford informs us in his booklet note, were improvised during performance in the proper eighteenth century tradition.

John Stanley was blinded in an accident at the age of two, but still managed to pursue a successful musical career and actually succeeded William Boyce as Master of the King’s Band of Music in 1779. Although these concertos were published late in Stanley’s life, Gifford speculates that they may have been written considerably earlier and cites the wide disparity of styles as evidence for this. The first two concertos, in two movements only (there may possibly have been an improvisation intended between them, in the manner of Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto) fall under the influence of baroque models and are positively Handelian in effect. The later concertos in three movements are more classically orientated and look forward to the music of Haydn which so delighted English audiences when the latter visited London towards the end of the century. The Fourth Concerto, over ten minutes long, is a very impressive piece of writing indeed; and one can imagine it being played on a fortepiano to exciting effect, especially the virtuoso Presto finale. This is also the only concerto of the set in the minor key.

Quite apart from the fact that Gifford has presented us with such unfamiliar music which is otherwise unavailable, the performances themselves are excellent both in manner and recording. Ensemble cannot have been easy with the strings being directed from the organ console, but it is clean and crisp enough to provide much pleasure. Separate tracks are provided for individual movements except in the Fifth Concerto. The recording was originally issued on LP in 1980 and its reissue is most welcome.

Paul Corfield Godfrey

 

 



Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing