Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- I • 1840–1857 A Musical Youth: St Paul's Cathedral (1)
- II • 1857–1859 ‘I saw the Lord’: Ouseley and Tenbury
- III • 1860–1872 ‘Drop down, ye Heavens, from Above’: Oxford (1)
- IV • 1872–1882 Reform and National Renown: St Paul's Cathedral (2)
- V • 1882–1888 H. M. Inspector of Schools and The Crucifixion
- VI • 1889–1901 ‘Love Divine, all loves excelling’: Oxford (2)
- List of Stainer's Works
- Bibliography
- Index
I • 1840–1857 - A Musical Youth: St Paul's Cathedral (1)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- I • 1840–1857 A Musical Youth: St Paul's Cathedral (1)
- II • 1857–1859 ‘I saw the Lord’: Ouseley and Tenbury
- III • 1860–1872 ‘Drop down, ye Heavens, from Above’: Oxford (1)
- IV • 1872–1882 Reform and National Renown: St Paul's Cathedral (2)
- V • 1882–1888 H. M. Inspector of Schools and The Crucifixion
- VI • 1889–1901 ‘Love Divine, all loves excelling’: Oxford (2)
- List of Stainer's Works
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I very much appreciate the kind tone of your letter. I must think over the matter of the biographical notice. My life has been so varied and cast in so many spheres of work that its story would almost make a book. At one time I began to collect notes for an autobiography but my scheme was nipped in the bud by pressing work. I intended to include a lot of illustrations of ceremonies, places, with a few funny sketches illustrating true stories. Your article would just spoil my autobiography – unless you became my Boswell(!) and carried it on.
John Stainer's letter to Frederick George Edwards, organist, writer and editor of the Musical Times since 1897, was written in response to one of numerous invitations Edwards had extended, and would continue to extend, to eminent men in Britain's expanding musical profession for a series of leading biographical articles. These commenced in 1898 and concluded five years later in 1903. Stainer's first reaction to Edwards’ suggestion of an article had been entirely negative: ‘as regards your kind proposal to introduce me into the Mus. Times, I hope you will not be offended if I ask to be excused. Find younger men! it will give them a leg up into the stirrup! Best thanks all the same, for thinking of me.’ Yet the subject of biography, indeed autobiography, had been on Stainer's mind prior to Edwards’ suggestion for an article, and that he, still only fifty-eight years old, was duly aware of the extraordinary variety of work that had absorbed his life from the age of seven and of the part that he had played in the rapidly burgeoning environment of Britain's musical life. But it seems that Stainer, who by 1898 was close to retirement and desirous of the need to withdraw from the public gaze, required time to dwell on the prospect of a more fulsome biographical intrusion.
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- Information
- John StainerA Life in Music, pp. 1 - 37Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007