30 Organ Voluntaries 1

John Stanley (1712-1786) was appointed organist at St. Andrew's Holburn at the age of fourteen, and became the youngest person to obtain a Bachelor of Music Degree from Oxford at the age of seventeen.

He was a great admirer of Handel, and after Handel's death, he continued to perform his series of Oratorios, and even followed in his footsteps by becoming a governor of the Foundling Hospital in London, where Handel had personally funded and played the organ, and also conducted eleven performances of the Messiah.

Stanley wrote a great number of organ voluntaries. In this edition, nearly all of the voluntaries feature a short, slow introduction followed by either a solo-stop movement (such as the so-called trumpet voluntaries) or a fugue.