Charles Wood (15 June 1866 – 12 July 1926) was an Irish composer and teacher; his students included
Ralph Vaughan Williams at
Cambridge and
Herbert Howells at the
Royal College of Music. He is primarily remembered and performed as an Anglican church music composer, but he also wrote songs and chamber music, particularly for string quartet.
Career
Born in Vicars' Hill in the Cathedral precincts of
Armagh, Ireland, Charles was the fifth child and third son of Charles Wood Sr. and Jemima Wood. The boy was a treble chorister in the choir of the nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral (Church of Ireland). His father sang tenor as a stipendiary 'Gentleman' or 'Lay Vicar Choral' in the Cathedral choir and was also the Diocesan Registrar of the church. He was a cousin of Irish composer
Ina Boyle.[1]
Wood received his early education at the Cathedral Choir School and also studied organ with two organists and masters of the Boys of Armagh Cathedral, Robert Turle and his successor Dr Thomas Marks. In 1883 he became one of fifty inaugural class members of the
Royal College of Music, studying composition with
Charles Villiers Stanford and
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry primarily, and
horn and piano secondarily. Following four years of training, he continued his studies at
Selwyn College, Cambridge until 1889,[2] where he began teaching
harmony and
counterpoint. In 1889 he attained a teaching position at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, first as
organ scholar and then as fellow in 1894, becoming their first director of music and organist. He was instrumental in the reflowering of music at the college, though more as a teacher and organiser of musical events than as composer. After Stanford died in 1924, Wood assumed his mentor's vacant role as Professor of Music at the
University of Cambridge.[1]
According to his successor at Cambridge,
Edward J Dent, as a teacher of composition, Wood "was surpassed only by Stanford himself [and] as a teacher of counterpoint and fugue he was unequalled".[3] His pupils at Cambridge included Ralph Vaughan Williams,
Nicholas Gatty,
Arthur Bliss,
Cecil Armstrong Gibbs and
W Denis Browne. Dent says that, because Stanford did not reside in Cambridge, Wood took on the real burden on teaching for many years before his own election as Professor of Music, by which time his health was already undermined. He died in July 1926 after only two years in the post.
Personal life
He married Charlotte Georgina Wills-Sandford, daughter of William Robert Wills-Sandford, of
Castlerea,
County Roscommon, Ireland, on 17 March 1898. They had two sons and three daughters, including Lieutenant Patrick Bryan Sandford Wood
R.A.F. (1899-1918), who was killed in an aircraft accident during the
First World War and is buried at
Taranto, Italy.[1][4] The family's address in Cambridge was 17, Cranmer Road. He is buried at the
Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge,[5] together with his wife. There is a memorial to him in the north aisle at
St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh.[6]
The organist and composer William G Wood (1859-1895), also associated with Cambridge, was his elder brother.[citation needed]
Music
Like his better-known colleague Stanford, Wood is chiefly remembered for his
Anglican church music. As well as his
Communion Service in the
Phrygian Mode, his settings of the
Magnificat and
Nunc dimittis are still popular with cathedral and parish church choirs, particularly the services in F,
D, and G, and the two settings in E flat. During
Passiontide his St Mark Passion, written in 1920 for
Eric Milner-White, the then Dean of
King’s College, Cambridge, is sometimes performed. It demonstrates Wood's interest in modal composition, in contrast to the late romantic harmonic style he more usually employs.[7]
Wood's anthems with organ, Expectans expectavi, and O Thou, the Central Orb are both frequently performed and recorded; as are his unaccompanied anthems Tis the day of Resurrection, Glory and Honour and, most popular of all, Hail, gladdening light and its lesser-known equivalent for men's voices, Great Lord of Lords. All Wood's a cappella music demonstrates fastidious craftsmanship and a supreme mastery of the genre, and he is no less resourceful in his accompanied choral works which sometimes include unison sections and have stirring organ accompaniments, conveying a satisfying warmth and richness of emotional expression appropriate to his carefully chosen texts.
After the fashion of the time Wood composed a series of secular choral cantatas between 1885 and 1905, including On Time (1897-8, setting
Milton), Dirge for Two Veterans (1901, setting
Walt Whitman), and A Ballad of Dundee (1904, setting
W.E. Aytoun). There were also madrigals (including If Love be Dead, setting
Coleridge), part songs (such as Full Fathom Five) and solo songs, one of which, Ethiopia Saluting the Colours (setting
Walt Whitman) attained high popularity.[8]
Of the orchestral works, both the Piano Concerto (1886) and the Patrick Sarsfield Variations (1899) remained unpublished, although the Variations received a performance at the
Queen's HallBeecham Concerts in 1907.
Walter Starkie said the work "shows his power of creating what may be called the Irish atmosphere in music".[9] It has been revived in modern times by the
Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Simon Joly.[10] However, Wood appears to have lost confidence and abandoned the orchestral medium after 1905. Three symphonies and an opera remained uncompleted.[1]
He also composed eight string quartets (six numbered, plus the Variations on an Irish Folk Tune and a first movement fragment in G minor), spanning 1885 to 1917.[11] The early quartets show the influence of Brahms, but from No. 3 in A minor (1911) a more personal voice emerges, partly through the use of Irish folk melodies and dance tunes as thematic material.[12] There is a modern recording of No. 3 by the
Lindsay Quartet[13] and the
London Chamber Ensemble has recorded No. 6 for release in 2024.[14] The quartets were edited after the composer's death by Edward Dent and published in a collected edition by Oxford University Press in 1929.[15]
Wood collaborated with priest and poet
George Ratcliffe Woodward in the revival and popularisation of renaissance tunes to new English religious texts, notably co-editing three books of
carols including
The Cowley Carol Book. He was co-founder (in 1904) of the Irish Folk Song Society. Wood's arrangement of The Irish Famine Song (The Praties They Grow Small Over Here) was recorded in the early 1920s by the Russian tenor
Vladimir Rosing, and released on Vocalion A-0168.
List of works
Stage
A Scene from Pickwick, chamber opera in 1 act (after
Charles Dickens) (1921)
The Family Party, chamber opera in 1 act (1923)
several pieces of incidental music to plays
Orchestral
Piano Concerto in F major (1886)
Patrick Sarsfield. Symphonic Variations on an Irish Air (1899)
several unfinished symphonic fragments
Chamber music
String quartets
No. 1 in D minor (1885)
No. 2 in E-flat major, "Highgate" (1892)
No. 3 in A minor (1911/12?)
No. 4 in E-flat major, "Harrogate" (1912)
No. 5 in F major (1914/15?)
No. 6 in D major (1915/16?)
Variations on an Irish Folk Tune (c.1917)
Quartet in G minor (fragment; c.1916/17)
Other
Septet in C minor (1889) for clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, bass
Quintet in F major (1891) for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon
Sonata in A major (1890s) for violin & piano
Two Pieces (Jig, Planxty) (1923) for violin & piano
Two Irish Dances (1927) for violin & piano
Solo instruments
Organ
Variations and Fugue on 'Winchester Old' (1908)
Three Preludes on Melodies from the Genevan Psalter (1908)
Sixteen Preludes on Melodies from the English and Scottish Psalters (1912)
Suite in the Ancient Style (1915?)
Piano
The Choristers' March
Four Characteristic Pieces in Canon, Op. 6 (1893)
Cantatas
Spring's Summons (Alfred Perceval Graves) for soprano, tenor, baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra (1885)
Ode to the West Wind, Op. 3 (P. B. Shelley) for tenor, mixed chorus and orchestra (1890)
Music – An Ode (A. C. Swinburne) for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra (1893)
The White Island (Robert Herrick) for soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, mixed chorus and orchestra (1894)
On Time (Milton) for mixed chorus and orchestra (1898)
Dirge for two Veterans (Walt Whitman) for baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra (1901)
The Song of the Tempest (Walter Scott) for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra (1903)
A Ballad of Dundee (W. E. Aytoun) for bass, mixed chorus and orchestra (1904)
Eden Spirits (E. B. Browning) for female voices and piano (1915?)
^A Guide to Churchill College (Cambridge, 2009), text by Dr.
Mark Goldie, pp. 62 and 63.
^J. S. Curl: Funary Monuments & Memorials in St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh (Whitstable: Historical Publications, 2013), pp. 52-53,
ISBN978-1-905286-48-5.