Festival Prelude on "Victory" (The strife is o'er)

Craig Sellar Lang (13 May 1891 – 24 Nov 1971) was a New Zealand-born British organist, composer and music teacher.

Born in Hastings, New Zealand, he was known to his friends as "Robin", and was educated at Clifton College. He was a pupil of Walter Parratt and Charles Stanford at the Royal College of Music. He was an ARCM and received his Doctor of Music from The University of Durham

Lang returned to Clifton as assistant music master in 1921, and in 1929 was appointed Director of Music at Christ's Hospital school in Horsham, West Sussex.

CS Lang's choral music includes service settings (such as the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in B flat, Op.16), and anthems such as "He shall give his angels charge over thee" (1941). His fine setting of Psalm 8 has remained popular. There are also many anthems for trebles' voices, composed for use at Christ's Hospital, as well as numerous secular choral works.

His best-known work is the "Tuba Tune' for organ, Opus 15. Lang's numerous other works for organ include a lengthy Sonata in D minor (Op. 47, 1947), the Introduction and Passacaglia in A minor (Op.51, 1952), the Fugue-Trilogy on E.G.B. (Op. 58, 1952), and many hymn preludes and sets of preludes and fugues.

"Festival Prelude on 'Victory'" was published by Novello in 1956. It appears as the 3rd piece in "Festal Voluntaries (Easter)", and is based upon the tune, "Victory," always linked with the words, "The strife is o'er."

It begins with a statement of the "refrain" of the melody played upon the Solo Tuba. The first "verse" is like a "freely-harmonized hymn," with an active pedal part. The second verse is more toccata-like, with very busy scale passages running underneath the melody.

Personally, I found this a hard piece to get right. Playing the notes isn't that bad, but adding the piston changes, without the benefit of foot pistons is almost ridiculously complex. The scheme I ended up with is more "simplified" than what I began with! :-)