Communion music
This week we shall be listening to “O for a closer walk with God” by Charles Stanford (1852–1924), performed by the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge.
Probably the most significant figure in the late-19th/early-20th century renaissance of English music, Stanford was, through his teaching at the Royal College of Music and Cambridge University, a hugely formative influence on the generation which included Vaughan Williams, Holst and other major composers, and was himself undoubtedly the finest British composer of sacred music since Purcell. Here he sets a well-known text by William Cowper (1731–1800) as part of his 1909 collection “Six Bible Songs and Hymns”.