Samuel Sebastian Wesley: A Life (review)

Although, in general terms, much has been written about Samuel Sebastian Wesley and his music, it is only in recent years that really serious attempts have been made to get to grips with his unusual personality and equally unusual achievements. Chief among these have been Paul Chappell's DrS. S. Wesley: Portrait of a Victorian Musician (Great Wakering, 1977), and the succinct overview that Donald Hunt contributed to Seren's Border Lines Series (Bridgend, 1990). What has been needed, however, and what Peter Horton has now supplied, is a study that draws upon all available sources to produce an account that examines Wesley's achievements and aspiration in the context of his daily life and troubled, not to say troublesome, personality.

By any standards, Wesley had much to be troubled, and troublesome, about. Born out of wedlock in London, the first of seven children fathered by Samuel Wesley on his housekeeper, Sarah Suter, he was made acutely aware of his relatives' extreme disapproval. Dr Horton is surely justified in suggesting (p. 2) that their frosty rejection must have 'contributed to those feelings of self-doubt and suspicion of others which so plagued him later in life'. But it is from such grit in the oyster of a child's development that genius can arise. And despite his father's never-ending shortage of cash and frequent bouts of depression, Samuel Sebastian's childhood passed in an atmosphere that was both loving and musically stimulating. How much he learnt directly from his father is uncertain, but it was enough to secure his acceptance, in 1817, as one of the Children of the Chapel Royal. His path to musical maturity therefore began, as it was to continue, through the practical process of 'learning by doing'. In most important respects, he was his own best teacher.

Wesley's professional career began in 1826 when, at the age of 16, he was appointed organist of St James's Chapel, Hampstead Road. Over the next seven years he occupied the organ stool at four London churches, appearing at the same time in recitals with his father, both in London and the provinces. Work as pianist, chorus conductor, and composer at the English Opera House, then under the direction of William Hawes, further extended his range and experience. An eight-bar example (p. 27) of the music he wrote in 1832 for Edward Fitzball's melodrama The Dilosk Gatherer reveals both his instinct for theatrical effect and, as Horton points out, his susceptibility to the charms of European Romanticism, particularly as expressed in Spohr's chromatic idiom. He was, in short, equipping himself with musical experience far beyond that enjoyed by the average church musician.

Exactly what prompted him to abandon his burgeoning career in the metropolis and, in July 1832, apply for the post of organist at Hereford Cathedral is unclear. Doubtless the prospect of a guaranteed salary and stable conditions of employment played their part, but it launched him on the cathedral-organist merry-go-round and was a decision he would always regret. Looking back, seventeen years later, he declared that, at first, the young organist 'can scarcely believe that the mass of error and inferiority in which he has to participate is habitual and irremediable. He thinks he will reform matters gently, and without giving offence; but he soon discovers that it is his approbation and not his advice that is needed' (p. 32). Thus began his lifelong crusade not only to reform the conditions under which church musicians were expected to operate but also to imbue their efforts with a proper sense of musical dignity and religious respect.

It is hardly surprising that Wesley's subsequent battles with inadequate, ill-paid choirs, and ignorant, opinionated clergy had their effect on his temper and patience. Yet he persevered: Hereford gave way to Exeter Cathedral and then, in 1841, to the very forward-looking choral conditions of Leeds Parish Church, an institution where 'the services were conducted with a...