Writing of his old teacher in 1952, Vaughan Williams foretold that his time would come round again: “With the next generation the inevitable reaction will set in and Stanford will come into his own”. He also made special reference to the Stabat mater: “I cannot but believe that such splendid music as the Stabat mater, Requiem and Songs of the Fleet will not strike home as soon as the opportunity is given to hear them”. It has taken more than a generation, but at last it does begin to look as though he was right.
The centenary recording of the Requiem was recently warmly welcomed in these pages (Marco Polo, 7/97) and now comes the Stabat mater, recorded in Leeds Town Hall, the scene of its first performance in 1907. Strong in ideas, deeply felt and structurally assured, this “symphonic cantata” (as Stanford called it) will certainly strengthen the steadily growing appreciation of his worth, though it may not spring surprises of delight as the Requiem did. The Prelude, impressive as it is with its allegro e feroce and broad F major cantabile, is almost too soundly constructed, and the first choral movement, rich in its Verdi-like foreground of soloists, signs off with a slightly self-conscious repetition of the opening words by the soprano. Stanford is never abashed by the prospect of melodic commitment, and the orchestral Intermezzo comes out boldly with what promises to be a good, old-fashioned Grand Tune; but then he seems to remember where he is, and the piece ends with murky explorations that seem not quite to find what they may be seeking. The work itself ends, as Lewis Foreman suggests in his useful notes, in Eternity: “we seem to reach the crest of a hill only to find the path stretching onward and upward to another”. That, of course, is one of the problems with Infinity: there’s an awful lot of it. At least Stanford inspires more confidence that the end will eventually come than do some of his German contemporaries.
The performance carries conviction, with Hickox exercising that natural rightness of his so that in a work such as this, without predecessors on record, a listener will feel that this is how it should ‘go’. Fine orchestral playing and choral singing give pleasure throughout. The solo quartet is led by Ingrid Attrot’s colourful but none too evenly produced soprano, and in the Bible Songs Stephen Varcoe sings sensitively to the judiciously registered organ accompaniment of Ian Watson. The most tuneful of Te Deums follows, blithe and buoyant in the orchestrated version previously heard in an excellent compilation under David Hill called “Jerusalem”, which duly comes out for comparison. As suspected: the choral sound in this is much more sharply, forwardly recorded. It is such a pity that when a desirable choral record appears one finds the choral element under-recorded; but so it is, again and again.'