John Stainer (1840-1901)

The Crucifixion

"Musicians today" wrote Ernest Walker in 1924 "have no use for ‘The Crucifixion’". Stainer himself, late in life, condemned his composition as ‘rubbish’. Yet both he and Walker must have known that these judgements were neither fair nor true. Certainly besides the works of Dufay, Tallis and the numerous early masters to whose study he devoted his distinguished career as Professor of Music at Oxford, his 230 or so services, anthems, hymns and cantatas are a very minor achievement, ignored by musicologists and meriting no more than footnotes in the few histories of English music in the 200 year dark age between Purcell and Elgar. But the recent revival of Parry’s forgotten symphonies, and Stanford’s rhapsodies has shown us the risks of this sort of categorisation; and any survey of English choral singing in the past century shows us that ‘The Crucifixion’ has in any case always defied it. It has never, perhaps, enjoyed quite the success which followed its 1887 premiere, when it was given more performances than any choral works save Handel’s ‘Messiah’, and Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’, ‘St Paul’ and ‘Lobgesang’, but even by 1927, when only one public performance was recorded, Percy Scholes could write that ‘there were probably, in addition, dozens of church performances’, and Nicholas Temperley, writing in 1980, acknowledged that it ‘remains a firm favourite’.

114 years on, ‘The Crucifixion’ is a fixture of the English choral scene; Walker’s judgement was as premature as Stainer’s was harsh. ‘Musicians today’ still enjoy performing choruses such as ‘Fling Wide the Gates’ and careers have been founded on ‘The Crucifixion’s’ baritone and tenor solos. The ‘Processional to Calvary’ is as fine an organ voluntary as any of its time, while the chorus ‘God so loved the World’ enjoys an independent existence as an anthem in parish choirs across the country; a minor classic in its own right and a beautifully expressive piece of choral writing.

‘The Crucifixion’ is no B minor mass or ‘Gerontius’, but it has stood the test of time and we are pleased to perform it tonight for what it is — a truly singable, impeccably crafted and genuinely felt period piece which can still stir and move an audience.

R.G. Bratby


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