Weeks after his 50th birthday in September 1902, Charles Villiers Stanford went to Buckingham Palace to be knighted, as part of Edward VII’s coronation honours list. He already had seven operas, five symphonies, important choral works and a multitude of other compositions to his credit; a professor at both the Royal College of Music, London and the University of Cambridge, he was also in high demand as a conductor. As a new century opened, his standing within the British musical scene could scarcely have been higher.
A hundred years later, we encounter a very different verdict on his achievement. ‘Posterity has not so much neglected Sir Charles Villiers Stanford,’ wrote the Australian musicologist Robert Stove in 2003, ‘as derived malicious satisfaction from ostentatiously yawning in his face.’ Stove’s pithy words pinpoint an uncomfortable truth about Stanford: while he is recognised as a key mover and shaker of his era, his music has
