Recollections of R.J.S. Stevens: An Organist in Gregorian London (Music in Georgian and Victorian Society)

Mark Argent

ISBN 10: 0809317907 / ISBN 13: 9780809317905

Published by Southern Illinois University Press, 1992

About this Item

314 Pages.

Seller Inventory # 621694

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Recollections of R.J.S. Stevens: An Organist in Gregorian London (Music in Georgian and Victorian Society)
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809317907
• ISBN 13: 9780809317905
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • England

About this title

Synopsis

The career of R DJ S Stevens (1757–1827) lasted from the late baroque to early romanticism. Trained as a choirboy, he was apprenticed at the age of eleven to William Savage, who undertook to instruct him in the "Science of Musick." After leaving Savage, Stevens pursued, somewhat unsuccessfully at first, a career as an organist. In 1782 his luck changed when he was elected an organist to St. Michael’s, Cornhill. He spent the rest of his life earning his living as a composer, organist, and music teacher whose pupils included the illegitimate daughters of Lord Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor. Among Stevens’s works is The Anacreontic Song, which serves as the melody for The Star Spangled Banner.

About the Author

Mark Argent was educated at Robinson College, Cambridge, where he began his research into the musical life of eighteenth-century London. He has written on the performance of glees and keyboard concerti and published nine performing editions of glees.