John Stanley cantatas

Dorsetmike

Member
Has anybody here heard or performed any of John Stanley's cantatas or oratorios; I've spent most of the afternoon searching the web and not found any recordings, and not much in the way of detail, opus 3 and 8 with 6 cantatas in each and opus 9 with a further 3 plus oratorios Jephtha, Fall of Egypt and Zimri are listed, but the only item printed seems to be his Fall of Egypt http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/boo...orth-LL.D.-and-Set-to-Musick-by-John-Stanley.

17th January 2012 is the 300th anniversary of Stanley's birth, I was thinking of trying to put something together to post on MIMF around the anniversary. Plenty of instrumental items about, mainly the organ voluntaries.

A contemporary "review" (late 1700s) rates his work "second only to Handel*
 

GoneBaroque

New member
Has anybody here heard or performed any of John Stanley's cantatas or oratorios; I've spent most of the afternoon searching the web and not found any recordings, and not much in the way of detail, opus 3 and 8 with 6 cantatas in each and opus 9 with a further 3 plus oratorios Jephtha, Fall of Egypt and Zimri are listed, but the only item printed seems to be his Fall of Egypt http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/boo...orth-LL.D.-and-Set-to-Musick-by-John-Stanley.

17th January 2012 is the 300th anniversary of Stanley's birth, I was thinking of trying to put something together to post on MIMF around the anniversary. Plenty of instrumental items about, mainly the organ voluntaries.

A contemporary "review" (late 1700s) rates his work "second only to Handel*

Mike,

I checked one of the sources I use to buy CDs which has an excellent variety but found only instrumental and organ in their list of 23 recordings. They did have a brief biography from which I took the following;

"He conducted several Handel oratorios during the final decade of that composer's life, and succeeded Handel in 1759 as co-director of the Lenten oratorio season at Covent Garden (oratorios replaced operas during Lent). Stanley provided a couple of his own oratorios for this series, but they were too imitative of the dead Handel to achieve much success". Not very encouraging.

Rob
 

CityRoger

New member
John Stanley Oratorio Zimri

I was interested to see this post - the music club I belong to are planning a performance of John Stanley's oratorio Zimri in March next year (2012).
 

bc16661

New member
Stanley / Zimri

How interesting that someone else is planning a Zimri - what are you doing about the missing movements? I literally started yesterday typesetting and editing from the facsimile score... I was thinking of spending some time in London looking at The Fall of Egypt to get an idea of his choral writing, then maybe trying to re-work some of his othe music to fit the texts...
Brian
 

bc16661

New member
There are two sets of very nice concertos, op. 2 which work a la Corelli or as keyboard concerti and op. 10 which are later and for keyboard and string trio (although you could either add a viola part - if that's not too unHIP - or double the bass at the octave); then there are several sets of recorder / flute sonatas; the cantatas are "nice" if you get my drift, some delightful arias; the larger pieces are completely unknown - I've transcribed a few movements of Zimri and they are really good, but only the overture and the airs / duets survive, so I'm contemplating "reconstructing" the lost bits (the text survives intact), and I'm very tempted to go to London and look at the other surviving works... The problem with sleevenotes is that they present only one person's opinion; the failure (or otherwise) of Stanley's oratorios had more to do with the time in which he lived than any slavish imitation of Handel - that in itself is a gross over-simplification of the situation! Stanley, Boyce and Greene always suffer from comparison with Handel because they are deemed "lightweights" - but musical change had tasted; these guys were a generation younger than Handel, after all...
 

Dorsetmike

Member
If you go to the link in Roger's post above, the John Stanley Zimri performance can be heard.

Quite an ambitious undertaking.
 
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