Stanfordian Thoughts
A periodical series of reflections on recorded and unrecorded works by Charles Villiers Stanford
by Christopher Howell

24. Stanford and the Irish Choral Society of Chicago

In my previous article in this series, I discussed three part-songs that, though published in the USA in 1923, had fallen from view until rediscovered by David Anderson, who has transcribed and typeset them for ChoralWiki. I mentioned in a footnote that Robertson has likewise unearthed and made available a further two, also published only in America, by Ditson in 1904. These are both SATB arrangements of songs from “Moore’s Irish Melodies”: “Sing, Sweet Harp” and “Come o’er the Sea”. I have not found copies of the original publications, which must be very rare, but I have found an advertisement page from another Ditson publication which shows that three songs were actually issued – the third being “Song of the Battle Eve”. These pieces were written for the Irish Choral Society of Chicago. The story of this organization, and Stanford’s marginal involvement with it, is fascinating and worth telling.

Read the full article in pdf format here. A link list for the previous articles in this series is provided here.