Sheet music reviews: Stanford, Nine Irish Folksongs (for unaccompanied SATB choir)

It seems unbelievable that a composer as good and as famous as Sir Charles Villiers Stanford should have nine complete SATB folksongs unpublished for a hundred years. In Church of England churches and cathedrals he is, as the young choristers might say, the absolute GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) in terms of crowd-pleasing and singable canticles and anthems. If you have a new set of singers and only 10 minutes to rehearse before the first Evensong of the year, Stanford's Canticles in C (or the ones in G, or, for that matter, the ones in B flat) and his exquisite anthem Beati quorum via will see you right. It is fair to say that his secular music has aged less well than his church music, the choral short-form works included, but The Blue Bird, from his Eight Partsongs Op. 119, is one of the most beautiful choir pieces in the repertoire.