COW - Sir Hubert Parry
Jun 12, 2013 7:18:28 GMT -5
Post by neilmcgowan on Jun 12, 2013 7:18:28 GMT -5
Prominent bufton, landed aristocrat, titled Baronet, insurance broker, and sometime composer Hubert Parry is Composer Of The Week on BBC R3 this week.
I listened to today's program, in the hope of hearing the slightest sign that this tweedy twit was indeed the "political radical" his apologists claim. Such sign came there none. Instead we heard a prolix and empty "Symphony No 3" which apes the outward style of Beethoven with none of the content.
The series is described as "Parry and the birth of modern British music". It may be true, but what a backward child this 'modern British music" appears to be - born with a silver spoon in its mouth, and its feet in the organ loft.
A rank amateur promoted to the senior ranks of the profession - Parry headed the Royal College of Music until his death, cheerfully steering this institution along the banks of the Cherwell with his punting-pole and striped jacket - Parry was promoted as the spiritual head of the "English Musical Renaissance".
GB Shaw looked askance at this mutual congratulation club of organist yes-men. When Parry's dreadful oratorio EDEN appeared in 1891, Shaw wrote:
But who am I that I should be believed, to the disparagement of eminent musicians? If you doubt that Eden is a masterpiece, ask Dr Parry and Dr Mackenzie, and they will applaud it to the skies. Surely Dr Mackenzie's opinion is conclusive; for is he not the composer of Veni Creator, guaranteed as excellent music by Professor Stanford and Dr Parry? You want to know who Parry is? Why, the composer of Blest Pair of Sirens, as to the merits of which you only have to consult Dr Mackenzie and Professor Stanford.
So where are these "modern British composers" of whom this tweedy scribbler was the alleged forebear?
Still writing chant-melodies for Choral Evensong, and still wearing fancy-dress in the organ loft, sadly.
Land ohne Musik.
If Parry established any kind of tradition at all in modern British music, then it was the lamentable jolly-good-show British amateurism that he confirmed as the image of a 'musician' - toasted crumpets around the fireside in the vicarage after Evensong. Boris Ord, Herbert Howells, John Rutter - the whole tweedy bunch of them.
I listened to today's program, in the hope of hearing the slightest sign that this tweedy twit was indeed the "political radical" his apologists claim. Such sign came there none. Instead we heard a prolix and empty "Symphony No 3" which apes the outward style of Beethoven with none of the content.
The series is described as "Parry and the birth of modern British music". It may be true, but what a backward child this 'modern British music" appears to be - born with a silver spoon in its mouth, and its feet in the organ loft.
A rank amateur promoted to the senior ranks of the profession - Parry headed the Royal College of Music until his death, cheerfully steering this institution along the banks of the Cherwell with his punting-pole and striped jacket - Parry was promoted as the spiritual head of the "English Musical Renaissance".
GB Shaw looked askance at this mutual congratulation club of organist yes-men. When Parry's dreadful oratorio EDEN appeared in 1891, Shaw wrote:
But who am I that I should be believed, to the disparagement of eminent musicians? If you doubt that Eden is a masterpiece, ask Dr Parry and Dr Mackenzie, and they will applaud it to the skies. Surely Dr Mackenzie's opinion is conclusive; for is he not the composer of Veni Creator, guaranteed as excellent music by Professor Stanford and Dr Parry? You want to know who Parry is? Why, the composer of Blest Pair of Sirens, as to the merits of which you only have to consult Dr Mackenzie and Professor Stanford.
So where are these "modern British composers" of whom this tweedy scribbler was the alleged forebear?
Still writing chant-melodies for Choral Evensong, and still wearing fancy-dress in the organ loft, sadly.
Land ohne Musik.
If Parry established any kind of tradition at all in modern British music, then it was the lamentable jolly-good-show British amateurism that he confirmed as the image of a 'musician' - toasted crumpets around the fireside in the vicarage after Evensong. Boris Ord, Herbert Howells, John Rutter - the whole tweedy bunch of them.
