Little is known of Theophania Cecil’s musical life and career, but her Twelve Voluntaries are stylistically very much of their time, with their suggested publication date of 1810. 

Written and presented by Daniel Moult, these are the first in a series of videos introduces the main stylistic areas of five significant organ schools, with discussion of the more contentious & lesser known aspects of these periods.

Here, an introduction to the series is followed by a discussion of the playing style for the early English School, from Byrd to Purcell.

The copy used for this digital edition comes from the RCO Library, and is part of the RCO’s on-going project to digitise and publish online its collection of rare eighteenth and early nineteenth century music. You can read more on the edition used, and also a little more on Theophania Cecil’s life and music, below, in an article by Andrew McCrea and RCO Librarian Frances Pond.

Graham Barber makes an appraisal of the origins and characteristics of Henry Smart’s (1812-79) compositional style, and identifies his most compelling works, in this article from the RCO Journal of 2013. It includes an annotated catalogue of Smart’s organ output, from the generally difficult concert pieces to easier works designed for divine service or pedagogic […]

William Russell gained high regard both as a musician and a man, as his obituary of 1813 shows, but his music has since been relegated to inconsequentiality, with the exception of some of his Anglican chants and organ voluntaries.  Gillian Ward Russell examines William Russell’s life and times, and discusses his organ music. Written at […]

Paul Spicer discusses the music he has spent a lifetime espousing – the choral music by the composers who reinvented the musical wheel in this country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; a genre which, in the right hands, could stand up and be counted, holding its own in any company, given a […]