Little could John Stanley have imagined that his oratorio Jephtha would have to wait 264 years for its premiere.

That day came on Wednesday, when university music department forces directed by Peter Seymour unveiled it in splendid style.

It was Stanley’s misfortune to spend most of his professional life in the shadow of Handel. Furthermore, Handel’s own Jephtha is among his most moving works, whereas Stanley’s is chained to a leaden libretto by Dr John Free and its ‘happy’ ending is less subtle than Thomas Morell’s for Handel.

The work owes its resurrection to graduate student Tom Dewey, who played organ continuo here. Its three acts are subdivided into nine scenes; the chorus is involved in only seven of its 52 numbers.

Stanley shows himself a workmanlike composer, alive to Baroque styles, but rarely rises above the humdrum, especially in his treatment of the voice.

His orchestral writing is more attractive. Rushing semiquavers in the strings lift a priest’s aria right off the page, and there are three effective uses of obbligato oboe (beautifully turned here). But Jephtha’s distress is a pale shadow of Handel’s portrait.

Jonathan Hanley, deputising at short notice, was a confident Jephtha, and Clare Aldrich injected an engaging humanity into the role of his daughter.

Other soloists tended to underplay the recitatives. Though Dewey’s attempts to turn this straw into gold fell short, he and the university deserve heartiest congratulations for their enterprise.