C. Hubert H. Parry (1848–1918)

As may be discerned elsewhere in myRreviews, I am a great admirer of Parry's work, and I am grateful to the various recording compoanies (HNH, Chandos, and Nimbus) for helping to restore him to music-listeners who might otherwise dismiss him as the composer of "Jerusalem", and/or the unhappy viction of Bernard Shaw's persistent pissiness. Now, that sentence is long, not simply -- not at-all, in fact -- because I can't write any better, but as a subtle suggestion of what one encounters in Parry's symophonies: a lot of idea, big breaths, big structures, but also clear purpose. In all those aspects, he resembles Brahms, whom we know he esteemed highly. At the same time his harmonic and orchestral pallette is -- dare I say it? -- broader than that of the German master, in that he has a greater self-indulgence in some of the sounds of Wagner, Liszt, and even the Russians, than Brahms would ever have considered. This G--Major First Symphony -- recorded here for the first time -- is of interest in that light, but also, of-course, for its own beauty, perhaps not a fully fleshed-out beauty, but beauty nonetheless. The late work FROM DEATH TO LIFE -- whose Latin title is botched on the jewel-case label -- is likewise beautiful, but this time one doesn't seen the bones below the skin. It is a perfectly realized evocation of the mood of a man who had endured personal crisis and was, at the time oif composing this, sharing the horror of "the Great War". In this particular performance, conductor Boughton makes a much more radical break in tempo between the two main sections than does Mattias Bamert in the Chandos version. Without benefit of the score, I won't venture which is the more "authentic". Both are convincing, and both reveal this to be a masterpiece well worth a place in the satndard repertory. Nimbus recording and accompanying notes are up to the highest standards.… (meer)

See my review of Parry's First Symphony for some general remarks about Parry. Suffice it to say of this recording that te energy and accuracy of the playing is exemplary, as is this 1995 recording produced and engineered by Tim Handley. I say "accuracy" for the specific reason that Parry' sound includes a whack of high, fast lines for the violins, and they are not for the faint of heart. Incdentally, as to the OVERTURE TO AN UNWRITTEN TRAGEDY, what was going-on with those Victorians? Landor wrote his IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS, Rolfe wrote his reviews of unwritten books, and now we have Parry. Maybe it was all that coal dust in the heady days of industrial expansion. Who knows?… (meer)

My favourite of the various Bamert-conducted Chandos recordings of Parry's works. The Fifth Symphony, which Parry subtitled "Symphonic Fantasia 1912", has a combination of sweep and tenderness which should open a place for this work besides several much-overprogrammed late-Romantic symphonies by Brahms, Dvorak, Chaikovsky, and Mahler. Its four interlinked movements are marked "Stress", "Love", "Play", and (remarkably) "Now". As little as I like to identify non-musical elements in pure music, the companion piece FROM DEATH TO LIFE unquestionably reflects -- as the title suggests -- the horrors of the World War, not to mention at-least a little contemplation of his own mortality: he would die in 1918, weeks before the Armistice. The final piece, the ELEGY FOR BRAHMS is a tender homage to the recently-dead master, in much the language of Brahms, but without slavishness imitation.… (meer)