This cantata was written in 1908 by Harold Moore.  Harold Moore studied composition, organ and horn at the Royal Academy of Music 1893 - 1895. He became the conductor of many choral societies and taught singing, piano, organ, harmony and counterpoint. His known compositions include three operas, many songs and anthems and the Lenten cantata The Darkest Hour’.

Passion tide oratorios such as Bach’s St Matthew Passion have long been a tradition of the Christian church as a Good Friday devotion. There was, however, a demand in Victorian times for music more approachable and understandable to non musical audiences with smaller scale works such as Stainer’s ‘Crucifixion’.Harold Moore’s ‘The Darkest Hour’, a work belonging to this genre, was first performed in 1906 and is now out of print. It is typical of much of the church music written at that time. Although with undoubtedly sincere intentions, some of it might be thought rather sentimental by modern standard -.(e.g. the male chorus ‘And now beloved Lord’ which is written in a decidedly ‘barbershop’ style.) The original performance was on a large scale, requiring a full symphony orchestra, organ, several soloists and a large choir. ‘The Darkest Hour’is now largely forgotten, although in its day it had a huge following and always packed churches. It is full of appealing melodies and easy on the listener. The large brass section and use of 'leitmotiv’ give it a Wagnerian feel, although stylistically it is firmly rooted in the Edwardian church music tradition. Click here for an excerpt of the opening sung by the choir at St Alban’s Church on Passion Sunday 2005

Click here to hear St Alban’s Choir sing another excerpt from ‘The Darkest Hour.The soloists are Emma Walton and Reg Barnwell The organist is Simon Hogan.The recording is was made when the choir gave a concert at St Pancratius, Sassenheim, Holland on April 2004.

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 The following article was published in LINK, Parish Magazine of St. Mary's Church, Bexley November 1998.
                         SALUTE
Passer-by, please spare a thought for a remarkable man who was treading this very floor a hundred years ago! For fifteen years from the spring of 1895 this church enjoyed the devoted service of a very talented organist and choirmaster HAROLD (STANLEY) MOORE (London 1870 - Mine head 1941), who lived in Sid cup 1880 - 1920, and in Copthorne, Sussex 1920 - 1940, The son of Henry Spencer Moore, a wine merchant, he studied composition, organ and horn at the Royal Academy of Music 1893 - 1895. Two months after finishing his studies there he married (Laura) Margaret Nutter, a well-known local soprano singer who had studied at the London Academy of Music. They had one child, a son (Kenneth) Hartley Moore, who was killed in one of the battles of the Somme in 1916 Margaret died in 1925, and shortly afterwards Harold married Trixie Snelling, a long-standing family friend, also from Sid cup. Early in the second world war the couple lived for some months in Somerset where Harold died in Minehead Hospital. By all accounts Harold Moore raised the standard of music in this church to a high level, and for special occasions he aroused great interest by augmenting the choir, bringing in orchestral instrumentalists and performing large-scale music. He was at one time or another deputy conductor, organist and secretary of the Sidcup Musical Social co-founder of the Sidcup School of Music, founder and conductor of the Bexley Festival Choir, violin teacher at Marl borough House School and Sidcup College, tutor to a Cent County Council singing class, director of a glee society, and a private teacher of singing, piano, organ, harmony and counterpoint. His known compositions include three operas (one of them performed in London), a 'dramatic music poem', six songs, anthems, a selling of the Communion Service and the Lenten cantata The Darkest Hour given its premiere in this very church (1906), and still occasionally performed to this day. Within a fortnight of the foundering of the liner Titanic he was conducting the Sidcup Musical Society in a memorial work for soprano, chorus and orchestra, which he had composed specially for the occasion.

Moore was also a photographer of 'near professional standard', who was in demand as an illustrator of books. An oak framed photographic portrait by him of the then Vicar Rev.J.H.Wicksteed, was hung in St. Mary's vestry in 1903. He was also asked craftsman in trinkets and ornaments.

Harold Moore is now largely forgotten, but in this church which he served so long with such skill and dedication it is perhaps appropriate to pause occasionally and travel back in imagination one hundred years in an attempt to picture the venerable building crammed with worshippers, many standing in the aisles, listening reverently to an augmented choir of some sixty or seventy with organ (then on the rood screen), trumpets, trombones, drums and the rest, pouring out their hearts in the Half Hallelujah Chorus, All people that on earth do dwell and other mighty works of praise.

'And some there be which have no memorial;

Who are perished as though they had never been'
Ecclesiasticus 44

September 1998
Brian Sargent

( many thanks to Brian Sargent who has spent some considerable time researching this composer)

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