A birthday gift for Queen Victoria

Some of you may be familiar with The Triumphes of Oriana, the famous book of madrigals by various Elizabethan composers compiled by Thomas Morley in 1601 in honour of Elizabeth I. The late Queen Elizabeth II received a similar choral compilation in 1953: A Garland for the Queen, with pieces by the likes of Bliss, Bax, Tippett, Howell, Finzi, and Vaughan Williams. Less well known, however, is a collection of part-songs written for Queen Victoria:

In 1899, Sir Walter Parratt (1841–1924), Organist of St George’s Chapel, Windsor and Master of the Queen’s Musick, and A. C. Benson, then a housemaster at Eton (a friend of Elgar, he was later the author of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and subsequently became Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge), conceived the idea of a collection of new part-songs after the manner of The Triumphes of Oriana to mark Queen Victoria’s eightieth birthday.  Choral Songs written by various Writers and Composers was the result, with music by Somervell, Stanford, Bridge, Wood, Stainer, Parry, Walford Davies (setting Robert Bridges), and Elgar (‘To her beneath whose steadfast star’).

Perhaps one of the reasons the collection is less well known is that it was printed in a limited edition of only 100 copies, thus making it very rare. I am therefore delighted to be exhibiting a copy at the forthcoming New York Antiquarian Book Fair. Not only that, with it is a copy of the attractive printed programme from the collection’s premiere, which took place in Windsor on 29 May 1900, conducted by Parratt. Bound in embossed paper wrappers and stitched with a silk ribbon, it bears the name of a ‘Mrs Broadbent’, one of the singers in the performance.

For more details, please see my fair list.