Parry: Sacred & Secular Choral Bits 'n Bobs

 

For this entry of my Bits 'n Bobs series, I look at a surfeit of choral music from Sir Hubert Parry. Since there are so many I will be covering, if you want to search for something in particular, I will begin with Parry's sacred music towards the top of this post, first choral/orchestral, then organ accompanied, and finally a cappella. I will then move on to Parry's secular music, particularly his poetic madrigals and then some Christmas madrigals.

Why am I listening to so many? Mainly because there are so few recording devoted primarily to the choral music of Hubert Parry. Essentially, to hear as many of his offerings in the choral realm as possible, you have to search out and scour recordings where Parry might pop up with one single song in a recorded choir program.

Best of all, this was a wonderful way to find new choirs, and talented ones at that. While the Hilliard Ensemble is a very well-known quantity, I can't remember ever having come across Canzonetta, Musica Sacra, or the St. Martin's Chamber Choir. More recordings for me to search out, I suppose.

While I am not covering Parry's contributions to hymn writing, I heard one from the Magdalene College Choir of Oxford, and it was mightily beautiful. Maybe I will throw in that video at the very bottom of this post (hint, hint!) Thus if you are interested in such things, there are some performances available, and good ones at that if my surface listenings are any measure.

De Profundis
God is Our Hope and Strength

At 24- and 12-minutes length respectively, these two are major works from Hubert Parry. That, and these are scored for a massive chorus and orchestra. I say massive because in De Profundis, the composer divides the chorus into 12 singing parts, first as three separate choirs of four voice-parts each, then as a double chorus, and finally the voices are brought together for a massive fugue.

Between these three choral sections, a solo soprano allows the singers to rest, here sung by Sophie Bevan, who I remember from her contributions to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Pan's Anniversary on Albion. While I worry every time she leaps into her higher range, Bevan makes for a fairly enjoyable respite. God is Our Hope and Strength is more typical of Parry, although a solo baritone is thrown into the mix, again appearing between choral contributions.

The Hertfordshire Chorus sounds like a large group, probably a good choice in this music. They really give this music their all, and are captured well by Signum. Listen to the altos when they enter the fugal section; have you ever heard such a striking entrance from the alto section? 

The London Mozart Players are no strangers to the music of Parry, for they recently set down recordings of Sir Hubert's lengthy oratorios Judith and Prometheus Unbound on Chandos. They sound just as engaged in this Signum recording, plus the shorter runtimes allow them to focus their energies well. While William Vann led those Chandos recordings, here we have David Temple, and he seems just as attentive and energized as Vann.

Did I mention that these performances are recorded premieres of Parry's De Profundis and God is Our Hope and Strength? Well now you know, and you can't find them anywhere else!

Evening Service in D Major 'Great'

I had a really great experience listening to the service music by Charles Villiers Stanford from The King's Consort, although those were performed with orchestra. Here we have a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from Parry, with the more typical organ accompaniment.

James O'Donnell is a well known leader of boy choristers, but since I don't often search out choirs with trebles, I rarely hear anything from him. It is simply a choral tradition I don't understand or necessarily take to. Of course, the Westminster Abbey choir is excellent, and they are captured in their space better than I had hoped for. Kudos to the boy soprano solo too!

As to the music, I am sure Parry's Evening Service is familiar to Anglican churchgoers, but not me. It is lovely, if not showcasing anything which stands out to my ears. On the other hand, this is purposeful music for the church, so maybe it doesn't need to stand out.

Hear My Words, Ye People

Here is another substantial sacred work at a 14-minute runtime. I like the constant registration changes required of organist Mark Rowlinson, as it makes for a varied piece of music.

The Manchester Cathedral Choir has a lovely treble sound, again taken by youths. I don't care for how the tenor and bass scholars come out of the texture, with rare moments of wild vibrato. I felt this less so with the Westminster Abbey Choir above, but that is what came to mind as I surveyed this work. As one who lives to the left of the Atlantic and is unfamiliar with such things, why have such a pure treble sound if the bass-clef singers are not going to cohere into the choral sound?

I would make time for this work to hear the Manchester organ being handled by a professional, I assume in the Manchester Cathedral itself.

Love Wakes

I love Paul Hillier as a choral leader. He bears such insights into choral music. In the Hilliard Ensemble, he was a performer within the all-male, four-member group, one most famous for its contributions to early music. The fellows not only covered the tenor and bass lines, of which Hillier was a bass I believe, but they also sang the soprano and alto parts, always a curious case for audiences in the United States who aren't used to such traditions. In this case, though, the Hilliard Ensemble comes out of the Renaissance and Medieval Eras to sing pieces from the Romantic Era.

That said, Love Wakes is essentially an English madrigal, so the Hilliard Ensemble sounds quite at home in this music. They are recorded in the manner of a vocal jazz group; sonically very close. I suppose this is in line with other ensembles such as The King's Singers, but this one seems really, really close, and in a rather dry studio setting too.

But such recording choices don't mar the beauty of the voices, nor the ability of the singers. I would be curious to hear the rest of this program to see what gems this ensemble ekes out of the Romantic Era.

O Love, They Wrong Thee Much
You Gentle Nymphs

While titled as English Romantic Partsongs, these sound like a cappella madrigals. These two from Parry are beautiful, if not sounding a little over-serious, although the Canzonetta Chamber Choir gives a little more musical derring-do to You Gentle Nymphs.

On the other hand, I Love, They Wrong Thee Much offers many opportunities for the choir to imbue personal touches, such as their wonderfully aspirated H's. I will say, the Ionian Singers on the Usk label make much more of this song than Canzonetta, however the competing choir is less secure as an ensemble, notably some blips in the soprano section. I think I might prefer the emoting of the Ionians over the distant Canzonetta though. I will include the other video performance below as well for those wishing to sample yet another English Partsong recording.

Too bad Canzonetta also has a rather dry performing space, although they handle the acoustic remarkably well. Their tuning, balance, and sustaining qualities don't suffer one bit, although I wouldn't want to do it in such an audio environment myself. This makes me want to search out their other recordings, if they exist.

As it is, they apply their wares lovingly to Parry, and I would imagine the same would be true of the other British composers on their English Romantic Partsongs recording.

Who Can Dwell With Greatness!

Who knew the British madrigal was such a popular genre in the 19th Century. It has taken me to traverse through Parry's choral music to truly realize all of the contributions into the choral world these have filled.

Who Can Dwell With Greatness threatens to become another smooth, self-serious partsong, yet Parry inserts some uptempo meter for some variety. The Royal Holloway Choir may be the finest a cappella singing ensemble I have heard in this Bits and Bobs segment, although I don't think Parry's motet tasks them in their abilities. Instead, they sound suave and alert when they could simply go through the motions. The adult sopranos are particularly beautiful amongst the ensemble.

Hyperion gives the Royal Holloway group a lovely ambiance, something not all of these ensembles have had the luxury of utilizing.

Sweet Day, So Cool
When Christ Was Born of Mary Free

Despite coming from the two different albums pictures just above, I thought I would group these two Parry songs together since they come from the same performing ensemble.

I believe this is the first US-based ensemble I am covering in Parry's music, where the St. Martin's Chamber Choir of New York handles his music rather sweetly, if not quite as characterfully as some of the other groups I have covered above. Really, this is not a strike against this choir, for who listens to music as I am for this Bits 'n Bobs series? Otherwise, they have a lovely tone and a nice balance across the parts.

As opposed to some of the other Parry songs I have heard for this blog post, these the Christmas motet is strophic in form, meaning the music simply repeat the same material over their many verses, instead of offering a contrasting section. In this way, I think the St. Martin's Chamber Choir could have imbued their own choices to vary the music, especially in When Christ Was Born. They make some dynamic contrast, but in general I think they could have just done more. 

Like the Parry choral album I heard from the Rodolfus Choir (BLOG), another singing ensemble I was unfamiliar with but who dazzled me with their choral sound, the St. Martin's Chamber Choir bears much of the church acoustic they are performing in. While that doesn't affect these songs, since they are of a slow-to-moderate tempo, I wonder how they handle faster tempos in such a watery acoustic?

As an aside, can I say how I love the little titles of some of these albums. While English Romantic Madrigals and Partsongs is quite informative as an album title, it has little of the romance of a title such as Dreams All Too Brief or The Long Day Closes from further up this post. Even The Romantic Englishman is rather fun.

Welcome, Yule

Sometimes, the best way to find out-of-the-way choral numbers are to peruse Christmas albums. Such is the case with Musica Sacra, a New Zealand-based choir I was also unfamiliar with. Luckily for me, I am no longer a stranger with this group, and mighty impressive they are, even considering Parry's Christmas madrigal is barely over a minute long.

I love how Musica Sacra smacks the word 'Welcome' throughout the piece, making the word a sort of ostinato throughout the music. I also enjoy how close the singers are to my ears, providing me a firm, colorful choral sound with plenty of body and depth. If all of their recordings are of this quality, consider me a future investor.

Of all the small choir works I have surveyed in this blog post, of which Welcome, Yule is the last, this one finds Parry at his very jolliest. This one is full of smiles and I would love to hear it placed in a choral program.

Summary

Whew! Since there were so many choral songs, I thought I would give the briefest of summaries relaying my experience with Parry. I think I preferred the composer's sacred music in this batch, but that could also be due to their placement at the beginning of my listening. I also thought this pick of madrigals and partsongs were a little low in temperature emotionally, no fault of these performers, for the most part. Smooth and serious seemed to pave the way in this selection.

Don't forget to check out Hubert Parry's Crossing the Bar below, from the Magdalene College Choir, Oxford.



Bits 'n Bobs

De Profundis (24.10)
God is Our Hope and Strength (12.55)
    Sophie Bevan, soprano
    Dominic Sedgwick, baritone
  London Mozart Players
  David Temple, conductor
  Signum Classics; 2026

Evening Service in D Major 'Great'
  Westminster Abbey Choir
  James O'Donnell, conductor
  Hyperion; 1999
  (12.25)

Hear My Words, Ye People
  Manchester Cathedral Choir
  Christopher Stokes, conductor
  Naxos; 2009
  (14.12)

Evening Service in D Major 'Great'
  Westminster Abbey Choir
  James O'Donnell, conductor
  Hyperion; 1999
  (12.25)

Love Wakes
  Hillard Ensemble
  Meridian; 1978
  (2.30)

O Love, They Wrong Thee Much (2.47)
You Gentle Nymphs (1.30)
  Canzonetta Chamber Choir
  Jeffrey Wynn Davies, conductor
  Somm; 1995

O Love, They Wrong Thee Much (2.45)
  Ionian Singers
  Timothy Salter, conductor
  Usk; 1996

Who Can Dwell With Greatness
  Royal Holloway Choir
  Rupert Gough, conductor
  Hyperion; 2016
  (3.06)

Sweet Day, So Cool (2.37)
When Christ was Born of Mary Free (2.41)
  St. Martin's Chamber Choir
  Timothy Krueger, conductor
  Cygnus; 1999

Welcome, Yule
  Musica Sacra
  Indra Hughes, conductor
  Atoll, 2014
  (1.16)

Crossing the Bar
  Magdalene College Choir, Oxford
  Mark Williams, Conductor
  Opus Arte; 2019
  (2.47)

Find more Parry recordings HERE!