Author Description

Contents: Winchester New, Ravenshaw, Mannheim, St. Columba, St. Fulbert, Carlisle, Ratisbon, Aus der Tiefe, St. George, St. Stephen, Stuttgart, Heathlands, Abridge, Würtemburg, University College, Hanover, Franconia, Merton, St. Ethelwald, Redhead No. 76. New Zealand-born British organist and composer Craig Sellar Lang (1891 – 1971), known to his friends as Robin, was educated at Clifton College and studied with Walter Parratt and Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music. He was an ARCM and received his D.Mus. from Durham. In 1929 he was appointed Director of Music at Christ's Hospital in Horsham, West Sussex, to which the choristers of Westminster Abbey were briefly evacuated during the Second World War. An obituary recorded his "personal magnetism" and determination to awaken "the budding musicianship of every sort of pupil". Lang resigned from this post in 1945 in order to devote more time to examining and composition. His instructional works, aimed at students, were highly influential. Generations of organists were brought up on his Harmony at the Keyboard, Exercises in Score Reading, as well as his books entitled Exercises for Organists, designed to prepare organ students for the keyboard tests of the Royal College of Organists' diploma exams. Lang's choral music includes service settings and anthems, many of which are for treble voices, composed for use at Christ's Hospital. His best-known work organ work is the Tuba Tune, a favorite of recitalists, which owes its title to the boisterous melody sounded forth on the organ's tuba stop, begins in the style of Handel but, in its central section, has some brief key changes that could belong to no century except the 20th. Lang's numerous other works for organ include a Sonata in D minor (Op. 47, 1947), the Introduction and Passacaglia in A minor (Op.51, 1952), and many hymn preludes and sets of preludes and fugues.