Stanford's dramataic anthem 'Fo lo, I raise up' has been edited by the leading Stanford expert Professor Jeremy Dibble, re-set but page for page and bar for bar the same as the original edition. It includes fascinating background to the work, Editorial method and performance notes.

Stanford’s choice of words from the first chapter of Habbakuk very much reflected his state of mind. War had been raging in Europe for over a year; news of the casualties had traumatised the nation, and now there was an increasing longing for an end to the conflagration. As Habbakuk protested, under the oppressive yoke of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian armies, when would God achieve his intention of bringing a reign of righteousness, justice and peace to the earth? God’s answer is to be patient, for the fulfilment of his promise and the establishment of his kingdom ‘will surely come’. By the same token, Stanford’s hope was for deliverance during a time of great darkness and turmoil. All this is expressed in an anthem of symphonic proportions, which, like the unique Bible Songs Op. 113 (1909), is highly dramatic in its extended ‘scena-like’ form of four sections, the first a violent representation of the violent invader in F minor, the second one of reassurance in the tonic major, the third (more developmental in its use of tonality), an exultant promise of fulfilment, and the fourth (a hushed coda in F major), an acknowledgement of God’s holiness.