Introducing C.S. Lang, organist, composer and teacher

Craig Sellar (C.S.) Lang was born in Hastings, New Zealand on 13 May 1891. He moved to England to study at Clifton College, Bristol and then at the Royal College of Music under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Sir Walter Parratt.

Lang was a respected organist, composer and teacher. He worked for sixteen years (1929-1945) as Director of Music at Christ’s Hospital School in Sussex.

Many musicians recall Lang as the author of user-friendly textbooks designed to assist the acquisition of various musical skills. These included the Two Hundred Tunes for Sight-Singing (c.1927) and Harmony at the Keyboard (1959). Lang regularly contributed examination material to the Royal College of Organists.

Although C.S. Lang is usually associated with church music and the organ loft, he did compose a considerable body of secular music featuring choral works, songs and part-songs. Large scale works included his cantatas Lochinvar, op.7 based on a text by Sir Walter Scott and The Jackdaw of Rheims, op.14 to a poem by ‘Thomas Ingoldsby’.  These is also a forgotten Symphony in A minor, composed in 1942. Pianists should be grateful to Lang for his character pieces such as Fireflies and Grotesque Dance, op.75, the Miniature Suite, op. 89 and more significant for aspiring pianists, A Miniature 48, op.64 which were modelled on Bach’s example, but considerably easier.

Despite this variety of music, C.S. Lang is recalled today for his organ music. His best-known piece is Tuba Tune in D major, op.15 which is often heard in cathedrals, parish churches and on CD. Other organ works, most of which have fallen by the wayside, included contributions to the once-popular Novello Festal Voluntaries Series: Winchester New and Victory. There was also an Introduction and Passacaglia, op 51, a Toccata in C Minor op. 81, a Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, op 84 and the Prelude, Pastorale and Fugue, op.86.

C.S. Lang died on 24 November, 1971 in Westminster.

With thanks to the English Music Festival where this short bio was first published.