The disc begins with Parry's Hear Ye, O my people ! Written some twenty years before the Songs of Farewell, it is solidly in the “Cathedral” style typified by Samuel Wesley, for massed voices. It was first performed by the Salisbury Diocesan Choral Association which could deploy up to 2000 singers. Initially the organ dominates with spectacular effect, but a solo quartet soon emerges, defining the line and leading the unison voices. A solo aria for bass “Clouds and Darkness” creates further focus. In contrast to the might that has gone before, “Behold, the eye of the Lord” shines with lightness, the purity further underlined by a youthful treble. The organ introduces the hymn “O praise ye the Lord!” drawing together the soloists, the choir and the magnificence of the New College organ (here played by Timothy Wakewell). The influence of Bach is detectable in the structure, showing the depth of Parry's understanding of wider European sacred music.
It's entirely apposite, therefore, to hear Mendelssohn's Sechs Sprüche in this context, given how Mendelssohn acknowledged Bach. Mendelssohn's oratorios and other works were received with such enthusiasm in this country that he is effectively a British composer by adoption. These six motets date from 1843-1846 and were written when Mendelssohn was Generalmusikdirector to the Hohenzollerns in Berlin, and reflect the Prussian pietist aesthetic. The songs are a capella, their beauty unadorned, so to speak, the blending of voices reminiscent of the early Lutheran Church, of Heinrich Schutz and even of Palestrina. Each motet addresses Christian themes – Christmas, New Year, the Ascension, the Passion, Advent and Karfreitag (Good Friday), and are readily adaptable for liturgical use.
Parry's Songs of Farewell can thus be heard in context, their contrapuntal clarity built on firm foundations. Though not entirely secular, they aren't religious in any restrictive sense, but reflect Parry's interest in ethical issues. "My Soul there is a Country", sets a 17th century text by Henry Vaughan. The “country” here isn't a nation in the modern sense, but a place beyond “foolish ranges” where grows “the flower of Peace, the Rose that cannot wither”. “I know my Soul hath Power” places moral responsibility on the individual. “I know myself a Man, which is a proud and yet a wretched thing”. “There is an Old belief” refers to the idea “old friends” shall meet again after death “Beyond the sphere of Time and Sin”. God appears in “At the round Earth's imagin'd corners”, to a text by John Donne, the vocal setting radiant, voices subtly and beautifully parted. “Lord let me know mine End” is poignant, given that by 1918, Parry's health was declining. He didn't live to hear the Songs of Farewell performed as a group at a memorial concert in his honour, at Exeter College Chapel with the combined choirs of New College, Christ Church and the Oxford Bach Choir, under Hugh Allen, Parry's friend and successor at the Royal College of Music.
As a bonus, Parry's Toccata and Fugue for organ in G major and E minor, from 1912, written for an organist who lost his right arm in battle in 1917 but survived. When Hugh Allen performed it at New College a few years later, he played with one arm tied behind his back. In this “intense, elliptical work, writes Robert Quinney in his excellent notes, “the advanced chromaticism and sometimes dense texture is reminiscent of the neo-Bachian form and harmony of Max Reger”. Just as there's a case to be made for Parry as the father of modern British music, he has a place in the wider European mainstream.
Please see my other posts on Hubert Parry, including
Parry Symphony no 4 - Rumon Gamba, BBCSO Chandos
Parry Twelve Sets of English Lyrics from SOMM Vol 1 Vol 2 and Vol 3
Parry Symphony no 5 at the Proms 2017
Parry and the Battle of Jutland
and much more
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