Hubert Parry

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Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (February 27, 1848 – October 7, 1918) was an English composer, probably best known for the choral song Jerusalem, the coronation anthem I was glad and the hymn tune Repton, which sets the words Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.

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[edit] Family

Born in Bournemouth, Dorset, and brought up at Highnam Court, Gloucestershire, he was the son of artist and collector Thomas Gambier Parry. He was educated at Eton and Exeter College, Oxford. He married Lady Elizabeth Maude Herbert (1851–1933), 2nd daughter of the statesman Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea by Elizabeth Ash à Court-Repington. They had two daughters.

Their daughter Dorothea Parry (d. 11 July 1963[1]) married Arthur Ponsonby, later Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (1871-1946) on 12 April 1898.[2] and had issue 1 son and 1 daughter.

The younger daughter Gwendolen Parry (b. 1877) married on 20 July 1899 in Gloucester, the baritone Harry Plunket Greene (1865-1936), younger son of Richard Jonas Greene by his wife Hon. Louisa Lilias Plunket, a daughter of John Span Plunket, 3rd Baron Plunket, and had issue 2 sons and 1 daughter.[3]

[edit] Career

He studied with the English-born composer Henry Hugo Pierson in Stuttgart, and with William Sterndale Bennett and the pianist Edward Dannreuther in London. His first major works appeared in 1880: a piano concerto and a choral setting of scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. The first performance of the latter has often been held to mark the start of a "renaissance" in English classical music. Parry scored a greater contemporary success, however, with the ode Blest Pair of Sirens (1887) which established him as the leading English choral composer of his day. Among the most successful of a long series of similar works were the Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day (1889), the oratorios Judith (1888) and Job (1892), the psalm-setting De Profundis (1891) and The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1905). His orchestral works from this period include four symphonies, a set of Symphonic Variations in E minor, the Overture to an Unwritten Tragedy (1893) and the Elegy for Brahms (1897). He also wrote music to accompany the 1883 Cambridge Greek Play 'The Birds' by Aristophanes, a production which starred the brilliant mediaevalist and ghost-story writer, M.R. James.

Parry joined the staff of the Royal College of Music in 1884 and was appointed its director in 1894, a post he held until his death. In 1900 he succeeded John Stainer as professor of music at Oxford University. His later music includes a series of six "ethical cantatas", experimental works in which he hoped to supersede the traditional oratorio and cantata forms. They were generally unsuccessful with the public, though Elgar admired The Vision of Life (1907) and The Soul's Ransom (1906) has had several modern performances. He resigned his Oxford appointment on doctor's advice in 1908 and in the last decade of his life produced some of his finest works, including the Symphonic Fantasia '1912' (also called Symphony No. 5), the Ode on the Nativity (1912), Jerusalem (1916) and the Songs of Farewell (1916–1918).

Influenced as a composer principally by Bach and Brahms, Parry evolved a powerful diatonic style which itself greatly influenced future English composers such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams. His own full development as a composer was almost certainly hampered by the immense amount of work he took on, but his energy and charisma, not to mention his abilities as a teacher and administrator, helped establish art music at the centre of English cultural life. He collaborated with the poet Robert Bridges, and was responsible for many books on music, including The Evolution of the Art of Music (1896), the third volume of the Oxford History of Music (1907) and a study of Bach (1909).

He was created a knight, and the first Baronet of Highnam in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom in 1902.

The site of his birthplace in Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, next door to The Square is marked with a blue plaque.

[edit] Media

[edit] Bibliography

  • Boden, Anthony (1998). The Parrys of the Golden Vale. Thames Publishing.  (family history)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Dorothea Parry" for date of death. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
  2. ^ "Dorothea Parry". Retrieved 25 May 2008. The marriage (and a description of the ceremony and the reception) was also reported in the "The Past Week in Society in the New York Times on 24 April 1898.
  3. ^ "What is Doing in Society in the New York Times on 1 August 1899. For details of her husband's ancestry and her children's names, see "Descendants of William Conyngham Plunket" no. 55. Retrieved 25 March 2008. Their grandson Alexander Plunket Greene (1932-1990) married fashion designer Mary Quant. Harry Plunket Greene was a first cousin of the the 5th Baron Plunket.

[edit] External links