A name well known to choristers, organists and priests, but not so much to others – Samuel Sebastian Wesley was the son of Samuel Wesley (also a composer who with Mendelssohn reintroduced Bach’s music to Britain) and the housekeeper.
The younger Wesley was a chorister at the Chapel Royal, then at the age of 22 made organist and master of the choristers at Hereford Cathedral, no doubt to his considerable prowess as a keyboard virtuoso. He married the Dean’s sister, and then moved to Exeter Cathedral, acquiring a Doctorate from Oxford for his playing.
Not always in great relationships with priests, he moved to Leeds Parish Church (newly built) to be organist, where he wrote a good deal of music. Come 1849 he moved to Winchester Cathedral, and then on to Gloucester Cathedral for the final eleven years of his life.
Today’s choice is a setting of verses from a variety of biblical sources. The opening section is sung three times, framing sections as to ‘the darkness is no darkness’, and ‘O let me soul live and it shall praise thee’, and was sung at the 1953 Coronation.
The composer Judith Bingham composed a companion piece to it in 2008 called ‘The Darkness is No Darkness’, using some of the same text as Wesley.
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