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

27. A Recitation that was and a Ballet that wasn’t

No matter what form of music you think of, Stanford’s copious output usually contains at least one example. Two genres are lacking: recitation and ballet.

The former gap has now been filled. Lay his Sword by his Side, a setting of Moore’s poem for reciter and orchestra, was sitting in the Royal College of Music library all the time and a scanned version of the original manuscript can now be downloaded from the Internet Archive. If this is hard to decipher, the English Heritage Music Series, under the editorship of Matthew W. Mehaffey, has computer-set it. The full score and parts are available for download.

I am not about to announce the discovery of an unknown ballet score, but I have come across evidence that one was contemplated and even partially written.

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