Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/450

 showed an independence of thought which was disquieting to some of Parry's friends. His father shook his head sadly over the heterodoxy of ‘poor dear Hubert’. A letter to one of the nearest of these friends shows Parry's own standpoint. He says, ‘I like my compositions as little as possible. I feel that they are far from what they ought to be; but I take a good deal of pains and do not write ill-considered reflections of Wagner, and though I feel the impress of his warmth and genius strongly I am not tempted to tread in the same path in the matter of construction, because what is applicable to the province of dramatic music is entirely alien to instrumental music. I have my own views on the latter subject. …’

Towards the end of 1875 Sir George Grove [q.v.] had invited Parry to collaborate with him as assistant editor of the monumental Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and the research which Parry's own articles entailed, together with the varied duties of editorship, stimulated that wide historical outlook which bore fruit later in his literary works, particularly The Art of Music (1893), The Oxford History of Music, vol. iii (1902), and Style in Musical Art (1911).

The customary division of a composer's work into periods is always dangerous; in the case of so continuous and consistent an artist as Parry it is doubly so, yet it is necessary if such a summary of his activities as this is to be anything more than a catalogue. What may be called the formative period came definitely to an end with the production in 1880 at the Crystal Palace of a piano concerto written for Dannreuther's performance. The same year ‘Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound’ for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra was given at the Gloucester festival and was the firstfruit of the type of work with which Parry was to make an indelible impression on the taste of his generation.

The spirit of splendid rebellion in the poem was Parry's inspiration; he brought to its expression all that growth towards freedom which he had acquired in years of probation. Naturally the technical influence of Wagner, the Wagner of The Ring, is evident; the subject encouraged it, for here he was nearer to ‘the province of dramatic music’ than he had been before. There is also more warmth of colouring and scenic suggestion in the orchestral music than in any of Parry's later work. But the quality of the melody, the sensitiveness to the English language, and the subtle beauties of the writing for the choir, are unmistakable. Here was a new voice in music; it happened to be an English voice.

In spite of the mixed reception of ‘Prometheus’, the way was now open for wider activities in composition. Two symphonies followed quickly on one another, that in G and the one known as the ‘Cambridge’, not only because it was written for the Cambridge Musical Society but because it had as background a ‘programme’ of undergraduate life. The Cambridge Society had rescued ‘Prometheus’ from its fate in an admirable performance, and in the years in which the Society was guided by (Sir) Charles Stanford many of Parry's works were given there as they appeared. A setting of Shirley's ode, ‘The Glories of our Blood and State’, appeared in the same year as the Cambridge symphony, and showed that Parry's mind was already turning to what became ultimately the dominating issue of his life—reflective choral music.

The music to ‘The Birds’ of Aristophanes (Cambridge, 1884) led to his one experiment in opera, ‘Guinevere’, a romantic opera in three acts, which he composed with enthusiasm in 1886, though with many misgivings about the libretto. A single attempt to get it performed led to nothing; Parry laid aside the score and with it all aspirations towards opera, the conditions of which became increasingly distasteful to him in later years. Yet his music to the comedies of Aristophanes at various times, ‘The Frogs’ (Oxford, 1891), ‘The Clouds’ (1905), and ‘The Acharnians’ (1914) shows that he retained a sympathy with and a certain instinct for the theatre, though he regarded these things rather as an academic ‘rag’ than as the serious business of his art.

The period was completed with the noble setting for double choir and orchestra of Milton's ode ‘At a solemn Music’ (‘Blest Pair of Sirens’). It has since become the most famous of all his works. Parry, together with many of his Eton and Oxford friends, had delighted in singing the choruses of the Mass in B minor, for the first English performance of which the Bach Choir had been originally formed. He wrote ‘Blest Pair’ for these friends at the suggestion of Grove, and its instant success amongst them, when the Bach Choir sang it in 1887, made amends for all the carping disparagement with which professional critics had pursued his earlier works. 424