Best known for composing Jerusalem, a stirring setting of William Blake's poem, And did those feet in ancient time, the coronation anthem I was glad when they said unto me, and the hymn tune Repton, also known as Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, Charles Hubert Hastings Parry now seems a secondary figure of late Victorian and Edwardian music, often linked with his contemporary Charles Villiers Stanford but overshadowed by Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Yet Parry's choral works were among the finest of his day and have endured into the 21st century, finding favor with choirs because of their inspirational tone, rich harmonies, and ease of performance. Songs of Farewell, a set of six motets composed in the last two years of his life, is a good example of Parry's reflective and soothing style, introspective in character and evocative of the subdued Anglican anthems of Samuel Sebastian Wesley and, as illustrated by the pairing here with Sechs Sprüche, strongly influenced by Felix Mendelssohn. This 2018 Novum release by Robert Quinney and the Choir of New College, Oxford, puts Parry's music in its proper context as English Romantic church music, which took its cue from Mendelssohn and maintained a kind of spiritual simplicity, free of harmonic complexity and operatic effects. The opening track, Hear my words, ye people, and the closing Toccata and Fugue for organ, "The Wanderer", give a taste of Parry's more extroverted, and at times more chromatic style, and frame Songs of Farewell with works of a dramatically different character. Recommended for anglophiles and fans of post-Romantic sacred music.
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