ABSTRACT
Charles Villiers Stanford's reputation as a composer has been gradually overshadowed by his reputation as a teacher. Stanford's melodies are characterised by straightforward rhythms, and stepwise and other simple intervallic leaps. The preference for simple intervals may reflect the influence of Irish folk music and perhaps also classical composers. In any continental country the centenary of a composer of Stanford's calibre would have been celebrated in every opera house in the country. The anti-Stanford side comprised mainly those British composers and critics who were out of sympathy with Stanford's evolutionary view of music. For musicologists and composers trying to find explanations for British music's conservatism and adherence to tonality, Stanford and his contemporaries were easy targets. For German composers such an education caused few difficulties: they were expected to develop and the tradition which they inherited. The problems faced by Stanford are the same as those confronted by such composers as Edvard Grieg and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
