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James O'Donnell is among the leading British organists of his generation. While some might further define him as a church organist and choir director -- roles he has fulfilled with the utmost commitment -- he has been active on the concert stage both as an organist and conductor. His choice of repertory has been broad, taking in the music of Renaissance-era icons like Palestrina and Josquin Desprez, as well as that of 20th century masters like Stravinsky and Poulenc. O'Donnell has made more than 40 recordings for the Hyperion label.

O'Donnell was born in Scotland on August 15, 1961. While in his teens, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. Later he was chosen as an organ scholar at Cambridge University (Jesus College), where he would go on to win several prizes and honors for organ performance. His teachers there were Nicholas Kynaston, Peter Hurford, and David Sanger. Shortly after his 1982 graduation, O'Donnell began his long relationship with Westminster Cathedral, serving there initially as assistant master of music. His first recordings as organist (with the choir) soon appeared, as Hyperion issued Victoria's Missa Vidi Speciosam (1984) and a recording of works by Francisco Guerrero and other Spanish composers entitled Treasures of the Spanish Renaissance (1985).

In 1988, O'Donnell assumed the post of master of music at Westminster Cathedral, thus taking control of the renowned choir. He frequently led them in concerts and concert broadcasts over both television and radio. He also made numerous acclaimed recordings with the choir, including Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms (1990) and Duruflè's Requiem (1994). From 1997 until 2004, O'Donnell served as a professor of organ at the Royal Academy of Music, remaining as a visiting professor after his tenure. In 2000, he accepted a post at Westminster Abbey as director of daily choral services and music at state occasions. The post also included leadership of the Abbey Choir in its concerts, recordings, and tours throughout Europe, Japan, Australia, and the United States. As a conductor, O'Donnell has often worked with period-instrument ensembles such as the Hanover Band and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As a keyboard soloist or continuo player, he has frequently appeared with the Gabrieli Consort and the King's Consort. He served as president of the Royal College of Organists from 2011 through 2013.

Though O'Donnell has mostly recorded for the Hyperion label, he's also been heard on Chandos, Decca, and Signum Classics, among others. His recordings with the Westminster Abbey Choir include an album of works by Christopher Tye in 2012 and a 2020 recording of Hubert Parry's Songs of Farewell. In 2022, O'Donnell announced that he would be leaving his Westminster post at the end of the year to take a teaching position at Yale's School of Music and its Institute of Sacred Music. That year, his choral work Present Yourselves as a Living Sacrifice was recorded by the Gesualdo Six for its album Lux Aeterna. Also that year, O'Donnell led the Westminster Abbey Choir at the funeral services of Queen Elizabeth II. These duties included a performance of his Psalm 139: Lord, thou hast searched me out, and known me, with the Choir of the Chapel Royal, for the reception of the Queen's coffin on September 14, as well as Judith Weir's Like as the hart at the Queen's state funeral on September 19. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke

Ralph Vaughan Williams was a central figure in the renaissance of English music that occurred in the first part of the 20th century. Using long, smooth lines and modal tonalities derived from folk sources, he deftly fashioned a unique style in the post-Romantic vein. At the core of his output are his nine symphonies and other orchestral compositions, such as his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis and The Lark Ascending. His choral settings of hymns, carols, and folk songs -- some of which have become the standard setting -- appear in several collections that he co-edited.

Vaughan Williams, who lost his father early in life, was cared for by his mother. Related through his mother to both Charles Darwin and the Wedgwoods of pottery fame, he grew up without financial worries. He studied history and music at Trinity College, Cambridge, and finished up at the Royal College of Music, where he worked with Parry, Wood, and Stanford. In 1897, the year he married Adeline Fisher, Vaughan Williams traveled to Berlin to study with Max Bruch, also seeking out Maurice Ravel as a teacher several years later, despite the fact that the French composer was three years his junior. In 1903, he started collecting English folksongs; certain characteristics of English folk music, particularly its modal tonalities, in many ways informed his approach to composition. Vaughan Williams further developed his style while working as editor of the English Hymnal, which was completed in 1906. His work on the English Hymnal went beyond editing, for he contributed several new hymn tunes, most notably the Sine nomine, the tune for the hymn For All the Saints. The composer's interest in and knowledge of traditional English music is reflected in his song cycle On Wenlock Edge (1909), based on selections from A.E. Housman's immensely popular volume of poetry A Shropshire Lad. In his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, composed in 1910, Vaughan Williams introduced antiphonal effects within the context of modal tonality, juxtaposing consonant, but unrelated, triads. Composed in 1914, his Symphony No. 2, "A London Symphony" brings to life, with great charm, the sounds of London from dawn to dusk. That year, Vaughan Williams also wrote his pastoral The Lark Ascending, for violin and orchestra. When World War I broke out, the 41-year-old composer enlisted as an orderly in the medical corps, becoming famous for organizing choral singing and other entertainment in the trenches. He was commissioned from the ranks, ending his war service as an artillery officer. The war interrupted the composer's work but did not, it seems, disrupt the inner continuity of his creative development. The Symphony No. 3 ("Pastoral"), composed in 1922, conjures up a familiar world, effectively incorporating folksong motifs into sonorities created by sequential chords. While critics detected pessimistic moods and themes in the later symphonies, ascribing a shift to a darker vision to the composer's alleged general pessimism about the world, Vaughan Williams refused to attach any programmatic content to these works. However, the composer created a convincing musical description of a desolate world in his Symphony No. 7 "Sinfonia Antartica" (1952), which was inspired by the request to write the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic. In addition to his symphonies, Vaughan Williams composed highly acclaimed religious music, as well as works inspired by English spiritual literature, culminating in his 1951 opera The Pilgrim's Progress, based on the spiritual classic by John Bunyan. An artist of extraordinary creative energy, Vaughan Williams continued composing with undiminished powers until his death at age 87. ~ Rovi Staff

This English composer, organist and teacher was active in the playing, arranging and collecting of sacred music. He served as one of the composers to the Chapel Royal from 1856 until his death although he did not serve directly after 1872. He received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge in 1876. Goss collected a number of pieces and wrote treatises as wel. "The Piano Forte Student's Cathechism," and "257 Chnats, Ancient and Modern," are illustrative of both treatises and collections from the work of John Goss. The body of his compositions include only glees and sacred vocal pieces in addition to one opera, "The Serjeant's Wife." The musical strains of Goss' compositions were sweet and the harmonies were sonorous combined by an altogether unified elegance. ~ Keith Johnson

Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's "Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music, and perhaps bits of Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely known in his own time, are the province mainly of specialists in Baroque music, and the events of his life, even though they reflected some of the most important musical issues of the day, have never become as familiar as the careers of Bach or Mozart. Perhaps the single word that best describes his life and music is "cosmopolitan": he was a German composer, trained in Italy, who spent most of his life in England.

Handel was born in the German city of Halle on February 23, 1685. His father noted but did not nurture his musical talent, and he had to sneak a small keyboard instrument into his attic to practice. As a child he studied music with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, and for a time he seemed destined for a career as a church organist himself. After studying law briefly at the University of Halle, Handel began serving as organist on March 13, 1702, at the Domkirche there. Dissatisfied, he took a post as violinist in the Hamburg opera orchestra in 1703, and his frustration with musically provincial northern Germany was perhaps shown when he fought a duel the following year with the composer Mattheson over the accompaniment to one of Mattheson's operas. In 1706 Handel took off for Italy, then the font of operatic innovation, and mastered contemporary trends in Italian opera seria. He returned to Germany to become court composer in Hannover, whose rulers were linked by family ties with the British throne; his patron there, the Elector of Hannover, became King George I of England. English audiences took to his 1711 opera Rinaldo, and several years later Handel jumped at the chance to move to England permanently. He impressed King George early on with the Water Music of 1716, written as entertainment for a royal boat outing. Much of his keyboard music, including the suite with the famous melody "The Harmonious Blacksmith" dates from just before his going to Italy and his first decade in England. For 18 months, between 1717 and 1719, Handel was house composer to the Duke of Chandos, for whom he composed the 11 Chandos Anthems for chorus and string orchestra. He also founded the Royal Academy of Music, a new opera company in London, with the support of the Duke and other patrons. Through the 1720s Handel composed Italian operatic masterpieces for London stages: Ottone, Serse (Xerxes), and other works often based on classical stories. His popularity was dented, though, by new English-language works of a less formal character, and in the 1730s and 1740s, after the Academy failed, Handel turned to the oratorio, a grand form that attracted England's new middle-class audiences. Not only Messiah but also Israel in Egypt, Samson, Saul, and many other works established him as a venerated elder of English music. The oratorios displayed to maximum effect Handel's melodic gift and the sense of timing he brought to big choral numbers. Among the most popular of all the oratorios was Judas Maccabeus, composed in 32 days in 1746. His Concerti grossi, Op. 6, and organ concertos also appeared in the same period. In 1737, Handel suffered a stroke, which caused both temporary paralysis in his right arm and some loss of his mental faculties, but he recovered sufficiently to carry on most normal activity. He was urged to write an autobiography, but never did. Blind in old age, he continued to compose. He died in London on April 14, 1759. More than 3,000 mourners were present for the funeral of the famous composer. He was buried at Westminster Abbey and received full state honors. Beethoven thought Handel the greatest of all his predecessors; he once said, "I would bare my head and kneel at his grave." ~ TiVo Staff

As England's greatest composer of the Baroque, Henry Purcell was dubbed the "Orpheus Britannicus" for his ability to combine pungent English counterpoint with expressive, flexible, and dramatic word settings. While he did write instrumental music, including the important viol fantasias, the vast majority of his output was in the vocal/choral realm. His only opera, Dido and Aeneas, divulged his sheer mastery in the handling of the work's vast expressive canvas, which included lively dance numbers, passionate arias and rollicking choruses. Purcell also wrote much incidental music for stage productions, including that for Dryden's King Arthur. His church music includes many anthems, devotional songs, and other sacred works, but few items for Anglican services.

Purcell was born in 1659 to Henry Purcell, master of choristers at Westminster Abbey, and his wife Elizabeth. When he was five, his father died, forcing his mother to resettle the family of six children into a more modest house and lifestyle. In about 1668, Purcell became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, studying under chorus master Henry Cooke. He also took keyboard lessons from Christopher Gibbons, son of the composer Orlando Gibbons, and it is likely that he studied with John Blow and Matthew Locke. In 1673, Purcell was appointed assistant to John Hingeston, the royal instrument keeper.

On September 10, 1677, Purcell was given the Court position of composer-in-ordinary for the violins. It is believed that many of his church works date from this time. Purcell, a great keyboard virtuoso by his late teens, received a second important post in 1679, this one succeeding Blow as organist at Westminster Abbey, a position he would retain all his life. That same year saw the publication of five of the young composer's songs in John Playford's Choice Ayres and Songs to Sing to the Theorbo-lute or Bass-viol. Around the same time, he began writing anthems with string accompaniment, completing over a dozen before 1685, and welcome songs. Purcell was appointed one of three organists at the Chapel Royal in the summer of 1682, his most prestigious post yet.

Purcell composed his first ode for St. Cecilia's Day in 1683. The following month, upon Hingeston's death, he was named royal instrument keeper while retaining his other posts. The composer remained quite prolific in the middle part of the decade, primarily producing music for royal occasions. In 1685 the new King, James II, introduced many changes at Court, one of which was to make Purcell the Court harpsichordist and Blow the Court composer. Near the end of 1687, Queen Mary's pregnancy was announced and Purcell was commissioned to compose an anthem with the text of Psalm 128, Blessed are they that fear the Lord. Many other of his anthems appeared in 1688, as did one of his more famous ones for church use, O sing unto the Lord.

With the ascension of William and Mary to the throne on April 11, 1689, Purcell retained his post as royal instrument keeper, and he, along with Blow and Alexander Damazene, shared the duties of Court composers. With his royal duties reduced, he was able to pursue other opportunities, including teaching and writing for other organizations. One of Purcell's greatest successes came in 1689 with the production of Dido and Aeneas. He then collaborated with John Dryden on King Arthur in 1691, and also composed the music for The Fairy-Queen (1692), based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream both productions also scoring triumphs. In the final year of his life Purcell remained exceedingly busy, writing much for the stage, including The Indian Queen, left incomplete at his death on November 21, 1695. ~ Robert Cummings

Christopher Robinson has rightly earned the reputation as one of the leading English choral conductors from the second half of the 20th century. While he has been closely identified with sacred music, he has also delved extensively into secular works. His repertory ranges from Baroque to contemporary, but with a decided slant toward 20th century British music. The names Elgar, Britten, Tippett, Maxwell Davies, Berkeley, Howells, Rubbra, Tavener, Walton, and a spate of other 20th century British composers occupy a good portion of his concert programs. That said, Robinson is also a master interpreter of the choral music of Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Duruflé, Rachmaninov, Poulenc, Messiaen, and many other non-British composers. Robinson, who often held the dual post of organist and choirmaster, has also drawn lavish praise for his skills on the organ. He has appeared on more than 50 recordings, mostly as conductor, with a few as organist (Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony, for example) and a handful serving in both roles. His recordings are available on numerous labels, including Naxos, Chandos, Brilliant Classics, Hyperion, Nimbus, EMI, Regis, and Guild.

Christopher Robinson was born in England in 1936. He trained originally as an organist, serving as an organ scholar at Christ Church, Oxford. He launched his career at Worcester Cathedral, accepting the post of organist and master of the choristers. While there, Robinson also served every August as conductor at the Three Choirs Festival concerts. Upon departing his Worcester Cathedral post, Robinson was appointed organist and choirmaster at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, holding the position until 1991. Robinson soon accepted another enduring appointment, that of conductor of the City of Birmingham Choir, a post he held from 1964-2002. He took on a concurrent third assignment, conductor of the Oxford Bach Choir (1976-1987).

By 1990 Robinson was one of the most acclaimed choral conductors in England. In 1992 he was given the title of Commander of the Victorian Order by the Queen for his masterly services at Windsor Castle. That same year Robinson accepted the post of organist and director of music at St. John's College, Cambridge. This period in his career saw a spate of highly praised recordings, like the 1993 Hyperion CD Sacred Music by John Tavener, with St. George's Chapel Choir. Robinson retired from St. John's College in 2003. Among his notable later recordings is the 2001 Naxos CD of Nine Tenebrae Motets by Rubbra.

Orlando Gibbons was one of the most important English composers from the early 17th century, with only William Byrd eclipsing him in rank. His church music, exclusively written for the English Church, is among the most popular and enduring in his oeuvre. Notable in this realm are his polyphonic anthems, O clap your hands, Hosanna, and Lift up your head. His two Services are also of great significance: the Short Service is polyphonic and the Second Service is a verse work with organ accompaniment. In the keyboard realm, several of his compositions have been widely declared of such masterful quality as to be unsurpassed by anything until the era of Bach. The Fantasia of Four Parts, from the Parthenia collection, is one such example. His fairly substantial output for keyboard includes many corantos, galliards, pavans, and fantasies. His First Set of Madrigals and Mottets demonstrate his considerable talents in the realm of secular music.

Orlando Gibbons was born in Oxford, probably no more than a week before Christmas, as his baptism took place on December 24, in St. Martin's Church, Oxford. With older siblings who were accomplished musicians, the young Orlando was raised in a musical environment strongly conducive to his burgeoning talents. It is likely that his first music training came from them, perhaps mostly from his brother Edward. On February 14, 1596, Orlando became a member of the King's College Choir at Cambridge. His brother, Edward, was then master of the choristers there. Orlando served in the choir until the fall of 1598, afterward making periodic appearances there until May 1599. By this time he was known to be composing music. Earlier that same year he began studies at Cambridge University. In about 1603, Gibbons became a member of the Chapel Royal, and on March 21, 1605, he was appointed its organist. He was already regarded as one of the finest organists in England, and had become a respected composer, though he would not see his first works published for seven more years. Gibbons graduated from Cambridge in 1606 and that summer married Elizabeth Patten, possibly only about 16 years old. There would be six surviving children from the marriage. The composer wrote a fair amount of music in the 1610s, but much of it would not appear until well after his death. The First Set of Madrigals and Mottets, apt for Viols and Voyces was published in 1612. A year later came the publication of six keyboard works in Parthenia, which was a collective effort in that it also included compositions by Byrd (eight) and Bull (seven). A collection of the composer's anthems appeared in Leighton's Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule of 1614. They include O Lord, I lift my heart to thee and O Lord, in thee is all my trust, both for five voices. On July 19, 1615, the now widely known Gibbons was granted 150 pounds by King James I for his "faythfull service." In 1619, Gibbons was appointed to the royal post of Musician for the Virginals, while retaining his prestigious Chapel Royal post. A collection of nine three-part works by him, titled Fantasias, was published in 1620. Three years later, Gibbons contributed 16 tunes to George Withers' collection, Hymnes and Songs of the Church. A 17th was added in a later manuscript. Gibbons accepted another post, in 1623, that of organist at Westminster Abbey. Two years later, he died suddenly in Canterbury, apparently of a stroke or related condition. ~ Robert Cummings

Herbert Howells decided at a young age that he wanted to compose music and then sought out musical training. His most important teacher was the cathedral organist at Gloucester, Herbert Brewer, and he became Brewer's assistant. At the age of 20, he entered and won an open scholarship competition at the Royal College of Music.

His main teachers were Charles Wood in counterpoint and Charles Villiers Stanford in composition. He is said to have been Stanford's favorite pupil and Stanford conducted Howells' Piano concerto No. 1 at a Queen's Hall concert in 1913. Meanwhile, Howells' Mass in Dorian Mode was sung in Westminster Cathedral. In 1916, his piano quintet became the first work to be published under the Carnegie Trust.

He obtained a position as a sub-organist at Salisbury Cathedral, but had to give it up because of ill health, which had already kept him out of military service during World War I. He was not expected to live, but did recover and in 1920 was able to resume his career. He started teaching composition at the Royal College of Music in 1920.

His compositional style quickly emerged: it is in the tradition of modal, folk-based music that is sometimes called "English pastoralist," continuing the trends of Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams. His imagination was often stimulated by particular places and by people he knew. This holds true even for his large body of church music, which was not inspired by religious sentiments ("I am not a religious man any more than Ralph was," he once said). It is probable that he wrote so much church music simply because he liked choral writing and his style is rich and melodic.

Although he wrote a substantial amount of fine instrumental and orchestral music, his choral and other vocal music is considered the work most likely to keep his memory alive. His masterwork is usually considered to be the Hymnus paradisi, a quasi-requiem he wrote out of the grief suffered when he lost his nine-year-old son in 1938. It is a visionary work, with the kind of deep but quiet feeling that is also associated with Frederick Delius.

He received other teaching appoinments as well. After Holst's death in 1934, Howells was chosen to succeed him as director of music at St. Paul's School and in 1954, he was named King Edward VII Professor of Music at the University of London. He was made Commander of the British Empire in 1953 by Queen Elizabeth II. He retired from his St. Paul's position and the University of London post in 1964, but retained his professorship at the Royal College of Music and held classes there almost right up to his death at the age of 90.

The importance of Hubert Parry to the renaissance of English musical life is often underestimated, but like his equally great colleague in that endeavor, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Parry is more often found in music encyclopedias than on the programs of modern orchestras. His profound influence on generations of composers, exerted during his years as director of the Royal College of Music, qualifies him as a genuine paterfamilias to music in the British Isles.

Parry's family was distinguished. His father, Thomas Gambier Parry, was a director of the East India Company; Thomas' great-uncle was Lord Gambier, Admiral of the Fleet. Salt water was, as it were, in Parry's blood, and one of his lifelong favorite recreations was piloting his own seaworthy yacht.

Parry must have seemed unusually talented for a young man of his day. One summer while at Eton, Parry had to travel to Stuttgart in order to study composition with the English pedagogue Henry Hugo Pierson, who had left England for an artistic climate more congenial to his endeavors. While still at Eton, Parry earned the Oxford bachelor of music degree, subsequently entering Exeter College at Oxford. His marriage to Maude Herbert, sister of his school chum George Herbert, 13th Earl of Pembroke, forced him to seek nonmusical work with Lloyd's register in London while establishing himself as a composer, but it was while working in London that he met and allied himself with teacher and pianist Edward Dannreuther, who was a great influence on the young man, arranging for private performances of much of Parry's early chamber music, and introducing him to the music of Wagner by procuring for Parry tickets for the second ever performance at Bayreuth of the Ring. Dannreuther was the pianist at Parry's first public triumph, a performance of his Piano Concerto in F sharp major at the Crystal Palace in 1880.

Parry made his mark at the many choral society festivals throughout England, with 1880's Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Bound, Blest Pair of Sirens (1887; to words of Milton), a setting of Milton's L'allegro ed il penseroso (1890), the oratorio Job (1892; considered by some to be his masterpiece of the 1890s), and the sublime Invocation to Music, with words by Robert Bridges (1895). In these works, Parry came up with a tangible English style, all the more noteworthy for its originality and wit.

Parry got in on the ground floor when it came to creating a viable musical education establishment for England, joining the staff of the Royal College of Music upon its opening in 1883. Eleven years later he succeeded Sir George Grove as the RCM's director. Parry also was Choragus at Oxford, beginning in 1883, and in 1900 took John Stainer's place as professor of music there. Parry wrote extensively and quite vigorously about music, in 1893's The Art of Music, Style in Musical Art (1911), and the unpublished Instinct and Character. He also wrote an excellent critical biography of J.S. Bach (1909), and was responsible for the third volume of the Oxford History of Music, Music of the Seventeenth Century.

Toward the end of his life, Parry was honored with knighthood and a baronetcy, as well as the genuine affection of the many composers who had benefited from his prescient and understanding way with helping his students find their own voices. In 1908, a breakdown of health forced Parry to retire from his administrative posts, but instead of causing a cessation creative activity, this crisis actually brought about what is frequently described as his "Indian summer," in which some of his very finest music was written.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley, in part named after Johann Sebastian Bach, was the son of prolific English composer and keyboardist Samuel Wesley and the great-nephew of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church. While his output was modest compared to that of his father, Samuel Sebastian Wesley is considered by some as the greatest figure in English cathedral music between the death of Henry Purcell and the advent of Charles Villiers Stanford. Born in London, Wesley began his career as a choirboy at the Chapel Royal at St. James' Palace. Wesley's choirmaster, William Hawes, took such a liking to Wesley that once his voice broke Hawes continued to employ him as a choral conductor and pianist at the English Opera House.

Wesley departed from London in 1832 to accept a post as cathedral organist, one of many, at Hereford Cathedral. Although he only stayed there three years, this turned out to be an important position; although he had been publishing his own music since the mid-1820s at Hereford, Wesley found his muse, producing the anthems "Blessed Be the God and Father" and "The wilderness and the solitary place." In 1835, Wesley eloped with the sister of the Hereford cathedral dean, and thus began his reputation as a difficult and unreliable character when it came to maintaining a routine as a cathedral organist.

Within the next 30 years, Wesley held posts at Exeter, Exmouth, at Leeds Parish Church, Winchester Cathedral, and Winchester College, all appointments that ultimately led to his termination, resignation, and to poisonous relations with his superiors within the church. Wesley tried to diversify his options through applying at teaching positions within universities, but was turned down for every one -- his "difficult" reputation had preceded him. Toward the end of 1847, Wesley fell and broke his right leg after a fishing trip; the injury never fully healed and inhibited his pedaling at the organ. Nevertheless, he remained famous as an improviser throughout his life; one contemporary critic identified Wesley "with apologies mostly to Mr. Mendelssohn, the greatest organist now living."

Wesley accepted the secondary position of organist at Winchester College in addition to his duties at Winchester Cathedral largely to put his sons through school; when he resigned from Winchester Cathedral, Wesley went to Gloucester Cathedral, which is where he was serving when he died of Bright's disease in 1876. He regarded his publication "Twelve Anthems" of 1853 to be his "most important work" and all of these pieces would become cornerstones of the Anglican Church repertoire. Wesley produced 38 anthems in all, and slightly less than 20 works for the organ, and though these genres remain the most significant ones on his work list, he composed service music in both Latin and English, secular songs and glees, a tiny bit of orchestral music, and a handful of works for the piano.

William Croft (sometimes called "Crofts") was a solid English composer and organist and one of the first of his country to pick up the developing Continental style of the late Baroque sonata. He is primarily known for his anthems and other church works and generally creates a rather dry impression of sturdiness rather than brilliance, charm, or leaps of imagination. He is credited with the great hymn tune of "O God Our Help in Ages Past."

He was a boy singer in the Chapel Royal and received music lessons from the choirmaster John Blow. As a favored student, Croft was promoted by Blow, whose help apparently got him the position of organist at the Church of St. Anne's in Soho; a good one, because a new organ had just been brought in. Later in the year, Croft and another young organist, Jeremiah Clarke, obtained the rights to the reversion of the position of organist and Gentleman Extraordinary of the Chapel Royal. In May 1704, the occupant of that position, Francis Pigott, died and the two organist/composers took over the job. Clarke, who evidently had a depressive personality, shot himself in 1707, leaving Croft as the sole occupant of the position. Croft had already gained attention owing to some of his anthems, including a couple celebrating the battles of Blenheim and Ramillies, showing that he was helping his aging teacher, Blow. When Blow died in 1708, Croft also inherited Blos's positions as Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal and organist of Westminster Abbey. Croft resigned from St. Anne's in 1712.

In 1713, he submitted two odes for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra to Oxford to earn a doctor of music degree. At a time when the German newcomer George Frideric Handel was gaining popularity, Croft kept in the good favor of Queen Anne. He wrote the standard Anglican burial service and in 1724 published a large number of anthems in a two-volume edition. This was revolutionary in the way it was arranged on the page; rather than the individual parts being printed on separate sheets, he had them all printed in score. These verse anthems marked a change in the style of such works; they are organized into longer subsections and generally juxtapose solos, duets, trios, and choruses, and include organ introductions. His instrumental pieces and secular vocal works, less solemn and formal, were all written in earlier parts of his career; he evidently devoted himself entirely to sacred music after about 1715.

Robert Quinney carries on a long English tradition of conducting collegiate choirs, performing as an organ soloist, and teaching. Since 2014, he has been the conductor of the New College Choir, Oxford.

Quinney was born in 1976 in Nottingham, U.K. As with so many other figures in the field of English choral music, he began his musical career as a boy chorister at Dundee Cathedral and then at All Saints Ecclesall Church in Sheffield; at the latter institution, he learned to play the organ. Quinney attended the boarding school Eton College on a scholarship and then went on to King's College, Cambridge, as an organ scholar (an organist whose university expenses are paid in exchange for providing music at services) from 1995 to 1998. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees at King's and then began his professional career as Acting Sub-Organist of Westminster Abbey, where he spent a year before becoming Assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral in 2000. That position involved a heavy schedule of choral conducting with Westminster's Cathedral Choir as well as frequent organ recitals, including one in which he played Francis Pott's difficult Christus. He led the Westminster Cathedral Choir on tours of the U.S. and Australia. At both Westminster and Oxford, Quinney made recordings both as organist and choir director. For the Hyperion label in 2005, he performed on the organ in the Westminster Cathedral Choir's recording of the Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor.

In 2011, Quinney was the organist at the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine Middleton. He held other positions in the early 2010s, including director of music at Peterborough Cathedral in 2013 -- where he oversaw the renovation of the cathedral's organ -- and director of the school Oundle for Organists. In 2014, Quinney was named organist, Tutorial Fellow, and choral director at New College, Oxford, a position that also entailed his elevation to the post of associate professor of music; he succeeded Edward Higginbottom, who had built an international reputation for the New College Choir, Oxford. Quinney has made solo organ recordings for the Signum Classics, Coro, and Novum labels. At New College, Oxford, he has continued the recording program instituted by Higginbottom. He and the choir moved to the Linn label for Media Vita, a recording of music by John Sheppard, in 2020. In 2023, Quinney and the New College Choir released the album New College; Commissions & Premieres on Linn. ~ James Manheim

Probably better known in his day as an organist, church musician, and music editor, William Henry Monk composed a fair number of popular hymn tunes, including one of the most famous from nineteenth century England, Eventide, used for the hymn Abide with Me. He also wrote music for church services and a number of anthems. Monk was born in London on March 16, 1823. His youth is not well documented, but it seems he developed quickly on the keyboard, but perhaps less so in composition. By age 18 he was organist at St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square (Central London). He left after two years, and moved onto two more organist posts in London (St. George's Church, Albemarle Street, and St. Paul's Church, Portman Square), each also for two years and each serving as a stepping stone toward fostering his musical ambitions.

In 1847 Monk secured the post of choirmaster at King's College, London. There he would develop an interest in incorporating plainchant into Anglican service, an idea suggested by William Dyce, a King's College professor with whom Monk had much contact. Monk also became organist at King's (1849), then in 1852 became organist and choirmaster at St. Matthias Church, Stoke Newington, where he began instituting many changes: plainchant was used in singing psalms and the music performed was more appropriate in regards to the church calendar. By now Monk was also arranging hymns, as well as writing his own hymn melodies. In 1857 his talents as composer, arranger, and editor were recognized when he was appointed the musical editor for Hymns Ancient and Modern, a volume first published in 1861 containing hundreds of hymns that would become, after supplements were added (second edition -- 1875; later additions or supplements -- 1889, 1904, and 1916) one of the best-selling hymn books ever produced.

It was for this publication that Monk supplied his famous Eventide tune, as well as several others, including Gethsemane, Ascension, and St. Denys. In 1874 Monk was appointed professor of vocal studies at King's College; subsequently he accepted similar posts at two other prestigious London music schools, the first at the National Training School for Music, in 1876, and the second at Bedford College, in 1878. Monk remained active in composition in his later years, writing not only hymn tunes but also anthems and other works. He died on March 18, 1889.