John Stainer

John Stainer was born in Southwark, London, on June 6, 1840. He entered the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral as a child and developed into an organist, composer, teacher, editor, and scholar whose career was closely identified with Anglican church music. His successive organ appointments included St Michael’s College, Tenbury, Magdalen College, Oxford, and, from 1872 to 1888, St Paul’s Cathedral. At St Paul’s he worked to raise choral and liturgical standards. He was knighted in 1888 and served as Oxford’s professor of music from 1889 until 1899. He died in Verona on March 31, 1901, and was buried in Oxford.

Stainer wrote anthems, services, hymn tunes, educational manuals, and the Passion cantata The Crucifixion. He also helped edit Christmas Carols New and Old and conducted important research into early music. His Sevenfold Amen, dated about 1870 in the Hymnary tune authority, became one of his most durable pieces of short service music. The Dictionary of National Biography described it as being in worldwide church use and noted its performance at the coronations of Edward VII and George V. Its sustained harmonies and cumulative design distinguish it from the briefer anonymous responses gathered in this record. The original setting is public domain, although later arrangements and editions may have separate rights.