Choral Song

Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810–1876) was one of the most gifted organists of his day, a renowned composer of church music who set the stage for the likes of Elgar, Parry and Stanford. Wesley was a pivotal force in the reinvention of of Anglican Church music during the nineteenth century, holding posts at Hereford, Winchester, Exeter and Gloucester cathedrals, becoming the Royal Academy of Music's first professor of organ in 1850. Whilst at Exeter, in 1842, he composed his Choral Song and Fugue. The Choral Song, perhaps the better known of the two, is grand, cheerful and tuneful, typical of Wesley’s style. It was originally composed for the chamber organ at Killerton House, thus it does not contain a substantial pedal part. The most commonly played arrangement by Walter Emery fleshes out the manual parts and includes a more fullsome pedal part, which is closer in grandeur to those other great cornerstones of Anglican Church music, who were themselves inspired by Wesley.