Wond'rous Machine: A Royal Remembrance

In this final concert in our Wond’rous Machine series, we mark not only the centenary of the 1918 Armistice, but also the death of the great English composer, Sir C. Hubert H. Parry (1848-1918). Parry came from a family of some distinction. He was the second son and third surviving child of Thomas Gambier Parry by his first wife. His father’s maternal great-uncle was Lord Gambier, Admiral of the Fleet, whose name he had taken, while Thomas Parry himself inherited a fortune from his own father, a director of the East India Company. He studied at Eton College and the University of Oxford (although his studied there were in History and Jurisprudence), and after a brief period working at Lloyd’s of London, soon began to make his name as a composer of remarkable music. By 1882 he was appointed Professor of Music History at the (then new) Royal College of Music, and offered an Honorary Doctorate in Music at the University of Cambridge. He was later appointed Director of the Royal College of Music, with further honours following: a knighthood in 1898, the chair of music at Oxford in 1900, and a baronetcy in 1903. He died on 7 October 1918, a month before the Armistice.

Northampton Bach Choir

Organ – Ivan Linford

Conductor – Lee Dunleavy

Works by Sir C. Hubert H. Parry:

Songs of Farewell

Blest Pair of Sirens

I was glad when they said unto me

Fantasia and Fugue in G

… and Hymns and Organ Preludes by Parry …

Abide with me

Dear Lord and Father of mankind

Jerusalem