C. Hubert H. Parry

Parry was born into a privileged and cultured family.  His father, Thomas Gambier Parry, was a gifted amateur artist and musician who collected medieval and renaissance art.  Like his father, Hubert was educated at Eton College (1861-1866) where he was introduced to many classical texts in the original Latin and Greek.  Parry developed here a lifelong interest in literature, keeping a list of his reading in the back of his diary each year.  The poets he read ranged from Shakespeare through Byron and Wordsworth to Tennyson.  

Parry went up to Oxford in January 1867, reading law and modern history at Exeter College.  Music continued to be his greatest passion and he developed his skills both in piano playing and composing. During this period his musical horizons began to widen as he immersed himself in works by German composers such as Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert.    

Parry was greatly encouraged to undertake a musical career by George Grove who soon invited him to contribute to his monumental Dictionary of Music and Musicians, whose first volume was to be published in 1879. Parry eventually wrote 123 entries for the dictionary, covering technical aspects of music.

As editor of Macmillan’s Magazine, Grove had also published 6 of Parry’s own poems back in 1875, recognising Hubert’s literary talent.

As Grove stated in a letter to Parry (dated 30 Dec. 1882):  “It is our wish to make lectures an important part of the College course. And into no hands could those on the history and development of music be put with more propriety than into yours […]”.

All the notes of Parry’s lectures are collected in 35 notebooks and include topics ranging from early music to the music of his contemporaries. 

In the late 19th century Oxford and Cambridge universities started performing classical plays in ancient Greek, with musical scores by contemporary composers. In 1883 the Cambridge classics scholar Francis Jenkinson invited Parry to compose the incidental music for the university production of Aristophanes’ The Birds, setting the Greek text.  

It was for Parry the beginning of a long journey through the classics that lasted 31 years.

In 1900 Parry composed music for Aeschylus’ tragedy Agamemnon, which kept him intensively busy throughout that year. Once again Parry expertly managed the Greek text. The result was largely appreciated by the critics, who had been initially sceptical about setting a work of antiquity to contemporary music. 

Parry’s last contribution to the Greek plays was with Aristophanes’ Acharnians, in 1914, just before the outbreak of the First World War. As the story talks about war, invasion scares, alliances and contains a strong appeal for peace, it had a deep significance for the times, especially for Parry himself who felt the profound sorrow in looking at his country lined up against Germany.

In his choral work “The Vision of Life”, we can also discover Parry’s poetic gifts as it is based on his own poem. It is a philosophical reflection on life: through the idealised characters of “The Dreamer”(Bass), inclined to pessimism, “The Spirit of the Vision” (Soprano) who leads him in his search for meaning and “The Dream Voices” (Chorus), Parry praises man’s philanthropy and his capacity to contribute to the common good. The work was much admired by Elgar.

In 1916 Parry was invited by the poet Robert Bridges to set the opening verses of Blake’s Milton to be used by the organisation Fight for Right (formed to counteract German propaganda). Despite his initial doubts, Parry eventually accepted Bridges’ proposal and composed the music for “And did those feet in ancient time”, better known as Jerusalem. 

“It is said that the greatest benefactor of a country is the man who writes its tune; if he had left us nothing but Jerusalem we could never repay him for what we owe him”(Harry Plunkett Greene).