‘The highest point up to that time reached by the combination of Hebrew and Christian sentiment in music’

Despite a continuing misconception that England was a musical desert during the first half of the nineteenth century, the London of Samuel Sebastian Wesley's youth was one of Europe's foremost musical centers, albeit largely foreign-dominated. As a result a generation of English composers grew up immersed in the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Spohr and Ries and their Italian contemporaries, fully conversant with their styles and with the confidence to attempt something similar themselves. While much of the impact of Wesley's church music is due to the uncompromising rigour of his harmonic language, it is equally dependent on his ability to build up convincing extended musical structures. The best examples of S. S. Wesley contain an expression of the highest point up to that time reached by the combination of Hebrew and Christian sentiment in music. Wesley's was a cruder, less finished voice, and he lacked the versatility and fluency of his German colleague.