The Irish composer Charles Wood (1866-1926) wrote much of his music for double choir or voices divided into eight parts. This approach probably derives from his years spent at Selwyn College and Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge, where he worked with the choirs and their ability to sing double-choir or divided-texture music with relative ease.

Wood was a product of the Royal College of Music and lived in the shadow of Stanford for much of his life, succeeding him to the Professorship in music at Cambridge on Stanford's death in 1924. Much of Wood's church music was not written at a time when he was working with the college choirs, but dates from the last few years of his life. The anthem Glory and honour and laud dates from 1925 and is typical of Wood's compositional idiom: divided parts and sturdy, sometimes modal themes. In this case there is a an element of rondo form, together with sudden key changes—first from the minor to the major and then into B flat major. Contrast in the texture is constantly made by the lower voices answering the upper voices. The final section is in eight-part harmony and the vocal fanfares lead to a most impressive ending.

from notes by William McVicker © 1995