1919] on Hubert Hastings Parry 545 



Let not that forceful dramatic instinct, at times even vehemently 

 expressed, be under-estimated or overlooked, as it frequently is, 

 because of the Classicists' horror of the theatric and superficial, 

 which so effectively checks the faintest approach to sensationalism 

 or mawkishness. 



In the well-known long lamentation Job does not wring his 

 hands, but takes his afflictions and sufferings like a man : and a 

 duet between Judith and Holofernes from that pen is simply 

 unthinkable ! 



As it is perhaps possible to nurse these sterner tastes with too 

 great a solicitude, I may allow myself further reference to them 

 presently. It is the self-imposed reticence, the uniformly-maintained 

 manliness of style, which impresses all the more by the absence of 

 austerity. 



To play, polyphonically, with huge choral masses at will, as upon 

 an instrument, with such consummate ease, argues the acquirement 

 of transcendent craftmanship. There was something more than 

 that. 



Always receptive, and observant of every inch of real progress, 

 he persistently broke fresh ground in a field for centuries particularly 

 our own ; and pointed the way to some of these newer present-day 

 experiments in choral treatment wliich promise to keep us still in 

 possession of it. 



But the Arts-man Parry presents several distinctly separable and 

 very personal temperamental qualities. 



He of the boldly energetic and majestic measures, of the broadly 

 sweeping melodies, alternates with the prolific writer of these many 

 compact Little tunes which run like delicate veins in blocks of 

 marble, and touch us by their ingratiating simplicity. 



To fully appreciate that gentler side we have but to look at the 

 ten sets of English Lyrics, to which he seems to have turned as if to 

 seek relief after each more strenuous effort ; for the series starts 

 early and ends late in the long catalogue. 



It would have been a miracle had wit and good-humour been to 

 seek in the music of one possessing so large a share of it. 



Hear " Laughter holding both his sides" in the Greek Comedies : 

 and " Honour due paid to mirth " in the droll treatment of the 

 "Pied Piper " — now an accepted classic. 



Oiir time-limit forbids even shortest discussion of the manner in 

 which the satiric humours of the Comedies are illuminated by 

 apposite quotations from every conceivable source. Tliese whimsical 

 comments, indirectly, also throw light upon some of his own personal 

 mislikes. 



In the " Frogs," for instance, Gounod and a special bete noir, 

 Meyerbeer, figure prominently. 



And in the much more elaborate " Clouds," the ludicrous com- 

 bination of Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Strauss and others 



