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Donald Macleod delves into Samuel Wesley’s religious background and fluctuating views.

Samuel Wesley was a child prodigy, and it was the older composer William Boyce who said of the boy that he was the English Mozart, and that he had dropped down from heaven. Wesley’s star speedily ascended to the heights from an early age as both performer and composer, but with issues surrounding his often extreme character, and also his health and morals, this ascendency was not to last. His popularity went in and out of fashion during his lifetime, and trying to secure a permanent position as an organist was something which eluded him for a long time. However, he was one of Britain’s leading musicians, mixed in the highest circles, and was responsible for promoting the largely unknown J. S. Bach to these shores. Towards the end of his life, famous musicians and composers sought Wesley out and even Mendelssohn asked the famed organist Samuel Wesley to play for him. We’re only just beginning to understand Wesley’s importance to the development of British classical music, and many of his substantial works, including numerous concertos for piano, organ, and violin, and large scale works for choir and orchestra, all still remain to be recorded.

Samuel Wesley was born into a Methodist background. His father Charles composed over six thousand hymns, and his uncle John was the famous founder of the English Methodist movement. However, as a young teenager Wesley started going to services at the chapels of several Roman Catholic embassies in London and eventually converted to Catholicism, sending a copy of his newly composed Mass to Pope Pius VI. Yet for Wesley, despite this very public statement of conversion, and his then highly questionable personal relationships, for him, it was really all about the music. In later life when religion wasn’t a key consideration for Wesley, he frequently attended churches and chapels of both Anglican and Catholic traditions, in order to play the organ, or just to listen to the choir.

Symphony in A major (Brillante)
London Mozart Players
Matthias Bamert, conductor

O Lord God most holy
Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Geoffrey Webber, conductor

Might I in thy sight appear
Frances Cary, soprano
Andrew Arthus, organist
Geoffrey Webber, conductor

Psalm 42 & 43
Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge
John Challenger, organ
Andrew Nethsingha, director

Dixit Dominus
Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Christopher Monks, organ
Geoffrey Webber, conductor

Preludium, Ariette & Fuga in C minor
Jennifer Bate, organist

Symphony in A major
London Mozart Players
Matthias Bamert, conductor

Produced by Luke Whitlock, for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Wales