ABSTRACT
The first version in the Oxford Harmonic Society volumes is intimate in style, although scored for eight voices; a later version in the Harmonic Society source is more 'artistic' and ambitious, though for five voices only. The five voices are Canto, Alto, Tenor, and Bass 1 and 2. The ceremonial Ode had traditionally featured in the Commemoration proceedings and the Heather Professors in the first half of the nineteenth century continued, as Bishop indicated, to fulfil the role of purveyor of occasional music along the lines. The text of William Crotch's Ode is reproduced in the Journal in full; beginning with ancient and Classical allusions, it closes in more specifically on the occasion itself, in the fourth stanza. The elements of change perceivable in the nineteenth-century commemorations can be subsumed under the broad heading of 'expansion' or escalation. The Commemoration celebrations had acquired the distinctive character of a musical festival from the early eighteenth century onwards.
