Te Deum

Stanford's grand-scale setting of the Te Deum op. 66 was first sung during the Leeds Festival on 6 October 1898, and the ambitious, sumptuous dimensions were clearly intended as a fitting commemoration of Queen Victoria's (the dedicatee) accession sixty years earlier, as well as a tribute to the Leeds Choir and its 350 singers. A particular feature of the Te Deum is the grandeur of much of the choral work. While it also has a dramatic effect, a dominant feature of the Te Deum is the prominent use of the choir and the many full sonorities that Stanford managed to draw from the magnificent 'instrument' of the voices from Leeds.