This morning’s prelude and anthem texts are reprinted under onelicense.net # A-717945. Hymn to St. Cecilia, words by W. H. Auden, © 1942 Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers. A Hymn for St. Cecilia, words by Ursula Vaughan Williams, © Novello and Company Limited, 1961. All rights reserved.

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Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, sacred and secular vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. For a long time Britten wanted to write a piece dedicated to St. Cecilia for a number of reasons. Firstly, he was born on St. Cecilia’s day; secondly, St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music; and finally, there is a long tradition in England of writing odes and songs to St. Cecilia. The most famous of the odes is by John Dryden (“A song for St. Cecilia’s Day”) and musical works by Henry Purcell, Hubert Parry, and George Frideric Handel. Another briefer work by Herbert Howells has the similar title A Hymn for St Cecilia, but was written later in 1960. The first extant reference to Britten’s desire to write such a work is from 1935 when he wrote in his diary “I’m having great difficulty in finding Latin words for a proposed Hymn to St. Cecilia.” As heard in this morning’s excerpt from his choral masterpiece, Britten in the end chose to set words by the British-American poet W. H. Auden.

W. H. Auden (1907-1973) was a British-American poet, author and playwright. A leading literary figure in the 20th century, he was known for his chameleon-like ability to write poems in almost every verse form. Raised by a physician father and a strict Anglican mother, Auden pursued science and engineering at Oxford University before finding his calling to write, and switching his major to English. Here, he pursued his love of poetry, influenced by Old English verse, and the poems of Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, William Blake, and Emily Dickinson. Auden visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he became an American citizen. He served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria.

William Croft (1678-1727) was an English organist and composer. He was a chorister at the Chapel Royal under John Blow, who exerted a very strong influence over all composers of this period from Purcell forwards; most of them passed through his hands at the Chapel Royal. At the age of twenty-two, Croft became Organist of St. Anne’s, Soho, and in the same year became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. A year later he became joint Organist of the Chapel Royal with Jeremiah Clarke, and then assuming sole responsibility in 1707 on the death of Clarke. In 1708 he succeeded his master, John Blow, as Organist of Westminster Abbey and Master of the Children and Composer to the Chapel Royal, retaining these positions until his death in 1727. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in the north aisle, where his monument can still be seen. Several of his hymn tunes are still in use today, as are some of his anthems, but he is remembered almost exclusively as a composer of church music.

Of Scottish ancestry, Robert Grant (1779-1838) was born in India. He was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1807. He had a distinguished career as a member of the British Parliament and later as Governor of Bombay (now known as Mumbai). As governor, Grant was a law unto himself, and under his rule a multitude of large-scale projects were pushed forward which were to transform the shape of British policy in the East. Knighted in 1834, he was also a hymnwriter of great merit. His “O Worship the King”, based on William Kethe’s translation of Psalm 104 is considered to be one of the greatest hymns in the English language, and is both widely sung and familiar to millions of church-goers. Some of his lesser known hymns are marked with the same graceful versification and deep feeling.

Although Ursula Vaughan Williams (1911-2007) had a long association with the musical world and understood it well, she was not a musician, but a writer. She was the second wife of the famous English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, and also the author of what was for many years, considered to be his standard biography. She also wrote poetry that appealed particularly to composers. Some set verses she had already published; with others she worked closely, providing librettos for several operas and large-scale choral works. After the death of Vaughan William’s first wife Adeline in 1951, he and Ursula married and settled in London, where he resumed many activities that he had long been obliged to restrict, due to the ill health of Adeline. It could be said that without the happiness this second marriage brought RVW in his last years, the course his music took might well have been less fruitful.

Martin Janus (ca.1620-ca.1682) was a German Protestant minister, church musician, hymn-writer, teacher, and editor. He wrote the lyrics of the hymn Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne, popularized in a chorale arrangement by Johann Sebastian Bach, and known in English as Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844-1930) was born in Kent, England. Educated at Eton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he went on to study medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, intending to practise until the age of forty, and then retire to write poetry. Lung disease forced Bridges to retire in 1882, and from that point on he devoted himself to writing and literary research. However, his literary work started long before his retirement – his first collection of poems having been published in 1873. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1900, and appointed Poet Laureate in 1913 – the only medical graduate to have held the office. Despite this appointment, Bridges was never a very well-known poet, and only achieved his great popularity shortly before his death, but, his verse evoked response in many great British composers of the time. Among those to set his poems to music were Hubert Parry and Gustav Holst. Bridges also translated historic hymns, many of which are still in use today, including his translation of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” from the original German.

Rowland H. Prichard (1811-1887) was a Welsh musician, born near Bala in North Wales. Well known for his gifted voice and for his work as a choir director, he wrote a number of hymn tunes, many of which were included in Welsh periodicals of the time. After living most of his life in his home town, Prichard moved to Holywell, where he became a loom-tender’s assistant at the Welsh Flannel Manufacturing Company’s mill. He is best remembered today as the composer of the hymn tune Hyfrydol , to which the hymn text “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus” is generally sung.

William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898) was an English writer of hymns and carols. He was educated in Bristol, for a mercantile career, and became manager of a maritime insurance company in Glasgow where he spent most of his life. His hymn texts are found in hymn books of many denominations, some of the most popular being “As with Gladness Men of Old”, “What Child is This?”, and this morning’s middle hymn, “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German composer of the Baroque period (ca. 1600-1750). He lived in Protestant north Germany in the days when music there made up an important part of the splendour of courts, of religious observance, and the daily happiness of the people. Over the course of his life, he held numerous posts: choir-boy, violinist in the orchestra of a prince, organist of town churches, and chief court musician. His last position was as music director at the St. Thomas Church and School in Leipzig, of which city his name is chiefly connected, since he remained there for almost the last thirty years of his life. He played many instruments, and as a clavichordist, harpsichordist, and organist, was supreme in his day. He was an extremely prolific composer and produced monumental instrumental compositions as the Art of the Fugue, the Brandenburg Concertos, and the Goldberg Variations, as well as cantatas, motets, sacred songs and arias, sonatas, concertos, suites, and an enormous amount of organ and other keyboard music. Two of Bach’s best known large choral works are the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B Minor, and since the 19th-century Bach revival, in no small part, thanks to Felix Mendelssohn, he is now regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Bach was twice married, and the parent of twenty (!) children, several of whom were also musicians.

John Darwall (1731-1789) was an English clergyman, composer and hymnodist. He first attended Manchester Grammar School, and at age 14 he was accepted to Brasenose College at Oxford University. Upon graduation, he first became a curate and later, was appointed Vicar of St. Matthew’s Parish in Walsall, where he lived out the rest of his life. Darwall is best known for his confident and optimistic hymn tune Darwall’s 148th, or simply Darwall, which is most often sung to the words “Rejoice, the Lord is King”.

John Rutter (b. 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. He studied music at Clare College, England, and later became the College’s first full-time Director of Music in 1975, leading the choir to international prominence. In 1981 he founded his own professional choir, the Cambridge Singers, with which he has made many recordings of the sacred choral repertoire. Rutter’s music is very well known and much beloved in choral circles, and is performed worldwide. His larger-scale works – particularly his Gloria (1974), Requiem (1985), and Magnificat (1990) are also well established in the choral repertoire, and the late Sir David Willcocks considered him to be the most gifted composer of his generation.

Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was an English leader of the Methodist movement, most widely known for writing about 6,500 hymn texts. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, and after graduating with a master’s degree in classical languages and literature, Charles followed his father and brother into Anglican orders in 1735. He was a younger brother of Methodist founder John Wesley, and Anglican cleric Samuel Wesley the Younger, the father of musician Samuel Wesley, and the grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley.

George Job Elvey (1816-1893) was an English organist, composer, choirmaster, and teacher. He was born in Canterbury into a family with a long musical history, and, as a young boy, was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral. Living and studying with his brother Stephen, he was educated at Oxford, and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at age 19, he was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at St. George’s Chapel, beating more experienced candidates such as Samuel Wesley to the post. Elvey held this position for 47 years, making him one of the longest service organists in the Chapel’s history. As well as taking charge of the choir and playing the organ, he gained a BMus and DMus from New College, Oxford. Renowned for his dramatic performances of the works of Handel, he was also a prolific composer of hymn tunes, anthems, oratorios, and service music – many of his pieces were composed for specific ceremonies and performed only once. During his time at St. George’s, Elvey was also appointed as Private Organist to Queen Adelaide (wife of William IV), and later to Queen Victoria. He was knighted in 1871 to recognize his work as an organist and composer; most specifically for the Festival March he wrote to be performed at the wedding of Princess Louise, the sixth child of Queen Victoria.