Editing Hubert Parry (section)

==Works==

===Music===
{{main|List of compositions by Hubert Parry}}
Parry's biographer [[Jeremy Dibble]] writes:
{{blockquote|Parry's musical style is a complex aggregate reflecting his assimilation of indigenous as well as continental traditions. Trained in the organ loft during his schooldays and educated through the degree system of the ancient universities, he had imbibed fully the aesthetics of Anglican church music and the oratorio-centred repertory of the provincial music festivals by the age of 18.<ref name=grove/>|}}
Many colleagues and critics have concluded that Parry's music is that of a conventional and not strongly creative Englishman. [[Frederick Delius|Delius]] said of him, "How a man rolling in wealth, the lord of many acres & living off the fat of the land can write anything about Job beats me entirely"{{sfn|Carley|1983|p=24}} and in 1948 [[Arnold Bax|Bax]], who was unaware of Parry's radical politics, wrote, "Parry, Stanford, Mackenzie – they were all three solid reputable citizens ... model husbands and fathers without a doubt, respected members of the most irreproachably [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] clubs, and in [[W B Yeats|Yeats]]'s phrase had 'no strange friend'. Of this I am sure."<ref>{{harvnb|Bax|1943|p=28}}, quoted in {{harvnb|Allis|2002|p=17}}</ref> The view of Parry taken by Bax and Bernard Shaw was contradicted by his daughter Dorothea in 1956:
{{blockquote|This fantastic legend about my father ... that he was conventional, a conservative squire, a sportsman, a churchman, and with no "strange friend" ... My father was the most naturally unconventional man I have known. He was a Radical, with a very strong bias against Conservatism ... He was a free-thinker and did not go to my christening. He never shot, not because he was against blood-sports, but felt out of touch and ill at ease in the company of those who enjoyed shooting parties. His friends, apart from his schoolfriends, were mostly in the artistic and literary world ... He was an ascetic and spent nothing on himself. The puritanical vein in him is considered by some to spoil his music, as tending to lack of colour. Far from its being an advantage to be the son of a Gloucestershire squire, my father's early life was a fight against prejudice. His father thought music unsuitable as a profession, and the critics of music in the mid-nineteenth century showed no mercy to anyone they considered privileged. My father was sensitive, and suffered from bouts of deep depression. The extraordinary misinterpretation of him that exists should not persist.<ref>Ponsonby, Dorothea.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/936472 "Hubert Parry"], ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 97, No. 1359, May 1956, p. 263 {{subscription required}}.</ref>|}}
[[File:Sir Hurbert Parry in Rustington.jpg|thumb|right|Plaque for Parry in Rustington]]
In an analysis of Parry's compositional process, Michael Allis draws attention to a widely held but inaccurate belief that Parry was a facile composer who dashed off new works without effort. He quotes the mid-20th century critics [[H. C. Colles]] and [[Eric Blom]] as equating Parry's supposed facility with superficiality.{{sfn|Allis|2002|p=19}} Allis also quotes Parry's diary, which regularly recorded his difficulties in composition: "struggled along with the Symphony", "thoroughly terrible and wearing grind over the revisions", "stuck fast" and so on.{{sfn|Allis|2002|p=20}} Parry himself is partly responsible for another belief about his music, that he was neither interested in nor good at orchestration. In a lecture at the RCM he was censorious of [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]] who, in Parry's view, disguised commonplace musical ideas by glittering orchestration: "When divested of its amazingly variegated colour the ideas themselves do not convince us or exert much fascination."{{sfn|Allis|2002|p=111}} Bax and others took this to mean that Parry (and Stanford and Mackenzie) "regarded sensuous beauty of orchestral sound as not quite nice".<ref>{{harvnb|Bax|1943|p=28}}, quoted in {{harvnb|Allis|2002|p=111}}</ref> In 2001, the American writers [[Nicolas Slonimsky]] and Laura Kuhn took the view: "In his orchestral music, Parry played a significant role in the fostering of the British symphonic tradition. While his orchestral works owe much to the German Romanticists, particularly Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms, he nevertheless developed a personal style notable for its fine craftsmanship and mastery of diatonic writing. His 5 [symphonies] reveal a growing assurance in handling large forms. He also wrote some effective incidental music and fine chamber pieces."{{sfn|Slonimsky|Kuhn|2001|p=2752}}

The early influence of Wagner on Parry's music can be heard in the ''Concertstück'' for orchestra (1877), the overture ''Guillem de Cabestanh'' (1878), and especially in ''Scenes from Prometheus Unbound'' (1880).<ref name=grove/> Dibble notes a more thoroughly absorbed Wagnerian influence in ''Blest Pair of Sirens'', and points to the influence of Brahms on such works as the Piano Quartet in A flat (1879) and the Piano Trio in B minor (1884).<ref name=grove/>

===Books on music===
Parry wrote about music throughout his adult life. As well as his 123 articles in Grove's ''Dictionary'', his publications include ''Studies of Great Composers'' (1886); ''The Art of Music'' (1893), enlarged as ''The Evolution of the Art of Music'' (1896) and described by [[H. C. Colles]] as "one of the foundations of English musical literature";<ref>Colles, H.C. [https://books.google.com/books?id=U4ExAAAAMAAJ&q=%22one+of+the+foundations+of+English+musical+literature%22 Preface to 1936 edition]</ref> ''The Music of the Seventeenth Century'' — Volume III of the [[Oxford History of Western Music#Oxford History of Music|Oxford History of Music]] (1902);<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''The Oxford History of Music''—Vol. III. ''The Music of the Seventeenth Century'' by C. Hubert H. Parry|journal=[[The Athenaeum (British magazine)|The Athenaeum]]|issue=3923|date=January 3, 1903|pages=25–26|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKA5AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA25}}</ref> ''Johann Sebastian Bach: the Story of the Development of a Great Personality'' (1909), rated by ''[[The Times]]'' as his most important book; and ''Style in Musical Art'', collected Oxford lectures (1911).<ref name=grove/>