Wood, Charles (1866, 1926)

Charles Wood (1866-1926) was an English composer. He stood for most of his life in the shadow of Charles V. Stanford, with whom he studied at the Royal College of Music, London and whose teaching duties at Cambridge Wood took over. Only after Stanford’s death did Wood become Professor at Cambridge for the remaining two years of his life. His students include Herbert Howells, Sir Arthur Bliss, Sir Thomas Beecham und Ralph Vaughan Williams and the musicologist Edward Dent.



Though living in England, Wood preserved a lively interest in Ireland and in 1904 co-founded the Irish Folk Song Society in London. Several of his chamber works and songs use Irish material. Wood, however, is mainly remembered as a fine composer for the church. Together with Stanford he is the most often played composer in the Church of England. This is reflected in his discography, which mainly concentrates on his liturgical music and does not quite represent his real oeuvre, in which his eight string quartets stand out.