PARRY MANUSCRIPTS TO BE SOLD
Chorley’s are to sell over seventy unpublished manuscript compositions by the
famous English composer Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. Some are incomplete
or in the form of sketches, but many, including several substantial works have never
been heard in public.
These are the earliest surviving manuscripts of the works of one of England's
foremost composers, described by Elgar as 'the head of our art in this country', best
known for Jerusalem and Blest Pair of Sirens but increasingly recognized as one of
the finest composers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Two of these works will receive their World premiere performance at Choral
evensong in Gloucester Cathedral on 9th May at 4.30 The Magnificat and Nunc
Dimittis in D, written in 1868, when Parry was 20 is complemented by an anthem
written while he was at Eaton College in1864 O sing unto the Lord.
These two compositions and the remaining Manuscripts will be included in Chorley’s
sale at Prinknash on Tuesday and Wednesday 19th and 20th May.
Hubert Parry, as he is generally known, was born in Bournemouth, on 27 February
1848; his mother had travelled there for the sake of her failing health, she died
twelve days later. His father, Thomas Gambier Parry was a wealthy and cultured
Gloucestershire landowner who had a large circle of artistic and musical friends. He
was himself an accomplished musician and occasional composer.
Hubert, the second son, very soon showed musical promise and began to compose
as a schoolboy. His earliest extant compositions, many of them preserved in the
present collection, date from his time at Eton, not then noted for its musical
education, where he excelled at sport and was instrumental in bringing music to the
fore by founding the Eton Musical Society. It was for the Musical Society that he
wrote much music and often performed as a pianist, singer, accompanist or
conductor.
He gained the Oxford B.Mus degree whilst still at Eton, and proceeded to Exeter
College in that university, not to study music but in order to qualify for a commercial
career as was the wish of his father. It is paradoxical that Gambier Parry quite
strenuously opposed the idea of his talented son pursuing a career in music when it
was an art which played so large a part in his own life. Needless to say the younger
Parry threw himself into the Oxford musical life with characteristic enthusiasm.
Parry's earliest teacher, largely in organ performance, had been Edward Brind, the
organist at Highnam, the church built by his father close to the family home, but
when he went up to Eton he sought more professional help from Dr George Elvey,
the organist of St George's Chapel, Windsor, beginning lessons with him in 1863.
Elvey instilled the formal discipline of counterpoint in the young composer, and he
was soon writing music for both the Eton Musical Society in the form of glees, partsongs, and piano works (many of them duets), but also composing works intended
for the choir of St George's. The anthems Fear thou not, O sing unto the Lord a new
song, Prevent us o Lord, Why boastest thou thyself, Blessed is He [rather oddly
entitled 'Blessed is they'], are all represented here, as is a complete Magnificat &
Nunc Dimittis in D Major, which appears to have remained unpublished and hitherto
unknown.
Although Parry was not studying music at Oxford he was an enthusiastic member of
the Exeter College Music Society (being president in 1869) and regular performer of
chamber music. He travelled to Stuttgart in 1867 where he worked with the
composer Henry Hugo [Hugh] Pierson (1815-1873). Some of the manuscripts in the
present archive date from this period and are probably annotated by Pierson, who
was an important influence on the younger composer.
The Collection is very important to the musical World as neither Eaton College or
The Royal College of Music have manuscripts of this early period and as well as
interest from British institutions private collectors will also be keen to acquire them.
The saleroom estimate for the complete collection, to be sold as one lot on 20th May,
is £30,000-£50,000