[1][3][4] In February 1848 he was selected from more than thirty candidates (adjudicated by Vincent Novello) as organist of St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate.
The spacious hall was crowded in every part...."[5] It was again performed at the Norwich Festival on 22 September 1852, when the soloists included Pauline Viardot, Louisa Pyne, Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, Sims Reeves, Italo Gardoni, Charles Lockey and Karl Formes.
The work suffered from being forced by a local clique into injudicious rivalry with Henry Hugh Pierson's Jerusalem, which was produced on the following day.
[1] "It appears that the oratorios of Dr Bexfield and Mr Pierson were both submitted to the committee of the Norwich Festival, and there was so strong a party for each, that to put an end to dissention, both were accepted.... the attendance was one of the largest ever remembered on a first night... the merits it [Israel Restored] possesses lie by no means deep beneath the surface, while the faults in which it abounds are chiefly faults of inexperience.... Israel Restored has no pretensions to be styled a great oratorio...."[6] Bexfield's other published works are a set of organ fugues, a set of six songs (words by the composer), and a collection of anthems.
[3] An obituary writer commented, "... when it is remembered that he was almost entirely self-taught, and that he pursued his studies under many and peculiar disadvantages, it must be allowed that no ordinary share of talent and persevering industry could have raised him to the position he had attained in his profession...."[7] Attribution