Sunday Feature: A Portrait of Parry

Sir Hubert Parry is largely remembered today for a handful of iconic works including Jerusalem, I was Glad, Blest Pair of Sirens, and for writing the hymn tune to Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. But Parry was far more significant than these few works which have remained in the public consciousness. In this centenary year since the composer's death, Simon Heffer argues for a reevaluation of Parry not only as a composer, but as a writer and educationalist. In interview with biographer Jeremy Dibble, he puts Parry back on the map and explores the composer's influence over younger generations of musicians including Vaughan Williams, Gurney and Howells. Parry promoted as both a writer, and a teacher at the Royal College of Music, that music should have a moral and social purpose, and that musicians should have the widest education and training. Simon Heffer visits the Royal College of Music to discuss these points with its Director, Professor Colin Lawson, and also to look at the handwritten score of a work that has been hailed as the beginning of a musical renaissance in England, Parry's Scenes from Prometheus Unbound