Today is the 175th anniversary of the birth of Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry – who, let’s face it, had far too many names, which is why everyone generally refers to him, simply, as Hubert Parry.
Parry was one of the foremost figures of the so-called English Musical Renaissance – not the actual Renaissance, mind you, but rather the flowering of English music that took place toward the end of the 19th century, after a nearly 200-year dearth of world-class composers following the death of Henry Purcell in 1695.
A professor at the Royal College of Music in London, Parry eventually became the school’s head. He influenced an entire generation of much better-known musicians, people like Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, and Frank Bridge.
Parry himself composed reams of music – symphonies, odes and oratorios, unaccompanied choral pieces, church music, an opera, chamber and instrumental works, incidental music for the stage, a piano concerto and, perhaps best of all, a set of “Symphonic Variations” – but he is probably best-recognized these days for his enduring choral work “Jerusalem” (still sung on the Last Night of the Proms) and the coronation anthem “I was glad.”
The character of much of his music – and the fact that his works have been embraced by royals and nationalists – might lead one to assume that Parry the man was a little on the stodgy side. But nothing could be further from the truth. He was a free-thinker, humanist and Darwinian in outlook, who was described with affection by some as a radical, with a strong bias against Conservatism.
Though he himself was enormously wealthy and never wanted for anything, he lived an ascetic life and a reflective one. He was against blood-sports and prone to bouts of depression – understandable in one disposed to reflection.
He was generous with his pupils and broadminded with those he disagreed with. Though he held strong convictions, he seldom took anything at face value. Without Parry’s perception and support of his most promising students, English music might have developed very differently.
It’s interesting to note that, even during his lifetime, his detractors used his “privilege” against him. But it seems his only indulgence was his yacht, which he dubbed “The Wanderer.”
Parry is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral, alongside Sir Arthur Sullivan and William Boyce.
Happy birthday, Hubert Parry!
“Symphonic Variations”
Symphony No. 3 “The English”
The “Lady Radnor Suite,” composed for Helen, Countess of Radnor, who led an all-female string orchestra
“Jerusalem” at the Proms
“I was glad” at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
Vaughan Williams remembers Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford
Dave Hurwitz of classicstoday.com shares George Bernard Shaw’s evisceration of Parry’s oratorio “Job”
“The Wanderer” Toccata and Fugue, named for Parry’s yacht
