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 one of his shorter but popular works. It is a setting of two verses from Psalm 51, opening with a soprano/treble solo, it develops its material in an often imitative manner.
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