Composer - Arranger: Charles Wood
From HymnsWithoutWords
Biography
Charles Wood (1866 – 1926) was an Irish composer and teacher.
Born in Armagh, Ireland, he was the fifth child and third son of Charles Wood Sr. and Jemima Wood. His father was a tenor in the choir of the nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral, and later worked as the Diocesan Registrar of the church.
From around 1872 to 1883, Wood received his early education at the Armagh Cathedral Church School, in particular studying organ with Robert Turle and Thomas Marks. In 1883 he became one of fifty inaugural class members of the Royal College of Music, studying composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry primarily, and horn and piano secondarily. Following four years of training, he continued his studies at Selwyn College, Cambridge through 1889, where he began teaching harmony and counterpoint. In 1889 he attained a teaching position at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, first as organ scholar and then as fellow in 1894, becoming the first Director of Music and Organist. He was instrumental in the reflowering of music at the college, though more as a teacher and organiser of musical events than as composer. After Stanford died, Wood assumed his mentor's vacant role as University of Cambridge Professor of Music in 1924.
Like his better-known colleague, Charles Villiers Stanford, Wood is chiefly remembered for his Anglican church music. As well as his Communion Service in the Phrygian Mode, his settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis are still popular with cathedral and parish church choirs, particularly the services in F, D, and G, and the two settings in E flat; during Passiontide his St Mark Passion is sometimes performed. Among his anthems, Expectans expectavi, Hail, gladdening light, and O thou, the central orb are frequently both performed and recorded. He also wrote eight string quartets, co-edited three books of carols and was co-founder (in 1904) of the Irish Folk Song Society.
His pupils included Ralph Vaughan Williams at Cambridge and Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music.
