Healy Willan - Poem for Strings

Healey Willan, CC (12 October 1880 in Balham, London - 16 February 1968 in Toronto, Ontario) was an Anglo-Canadian organist and composer. He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano. He is best known for his religious music.

Poem for Strings (1959)

CBC Vancouver Orchestra conducted by Mario Bernardi

In 1903, when still in London, Willan began sketching a string quartet. In Canada, in 1930, he salvaged the unfinished slow movement, revising it as a Poem for String Quartet. At the age of 79, he rewrote the work for string orchestra and the resulting combination of mature craftmanship and youthful expression produced one of his most beautiful instrumental pieces.

While serving as the organist and choirmaster at St. Paul's Bloor Street, Willan became interested in the music program at another Anglican church, the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. St. Paul's was an evangelical, low church; St. Mary Magdalene's, while much smaller, was notably high church or Anglo-Catholic. By 1920 Willan was assisting with choir practice. In 1921 he resigned his post at St. Paul's and turned his attention to St. Mary Magdalene's. He set about creating a great many liturgical works for use in the church's services. He remained at St. Mary Magdalene's until shortly before his death, last directing the choir in 1967.

Willam composed some 800 musical pieces, the majority sacred works for choir such as anthems, hymns and mass settings. His non-sacred opus includes some 50 choral works, 100 song arrangements for voice with piano accompaniment, many works for piano solo, for voice with instrumental accompaniment, two symphonies, a piano concerto, chamber works, incidental music for stage works, ballad operas, and at least one important opera (Deirdre).

In 1953 Willan received a commission to write an anthem for the coronation of Elizabeth II. The resulting anthem, O Lord Our Governour, continues to be frequently performed.

Willan's considerable output includes orchestral, choral, organ and piano, and chamber works, as well as music for plays and one opera. He is best known for his organ and sacred works, which show evidence of his love for plainsong and Renaissance music. For example, many of his liturgical compositions are based on church modes that date back 500 years. Also, his vocal lines are more melismatic and his style more contrapuntal and rhythmically free than those of his contemporaries. Willan's larger choral works, however, were very Romantic in nature. His rich harmonic palette and luxuriant, soaring melodies stand as testament to his admiration of both Brahms and Wagner. His music represents a unique and beautiful combination of styles: both an homage to the sacred music of five centuries ago and a reflection of the innovations of the Romantic/post-Romantic period in which he lived.

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