1919] on Hubert Hastings Parry 547 



'' Now ! " and depicts hopefulness rudely broken in upon and extin- 

 guished by tragedy, which in its turn becomes, in the light of human 

 love, the token of healing. 



The text of it all is best delivered in his own words, *' What is 

 Love ? The one thing that availeth. What is our hope ? That 

 good through Love prevaileth." 



This doctrine is taught continuously in a chain of choral cantatas, 

 commencing in 1903 with " Voces Clamantium," and completely 

 expressed in an elevated poem, " The Vision of Life," which reads 

 and sounds as if word and tone had been created simultaneously. 

 But for the war this mature and convincing proof of his genius 

 would have been performed, in its expanded and final form, in 1914. 

 We yet await that important event. 



The same spiritual idea, the call to humanity, pervades all the 

 later productions, none of which were penned without that under- 

 lying motive. 



The precious gift of his last years to our organists — namely, the 

 fourteen Preludes and the three great Fantasias on Hymn-tunes — 

 conceived in the monumental manner of his beloved Bach, is another 

 evidence of this pious fervency. 



Whether an inner premonition prompted into being the group of 

 six motetts called " Songs of Farewell " so near the end we may not 

 venture to guess. In that connection it is enough to possess in 

 these, to us, pathetic pieces some of the most sincerely expressive and 

 perfect specimens of EngUsh musicianship. 



Believing in the justice of posterity, I venture to think that it is 

 not premature for those who understand him to indicate what the 

 ultimate position of so complex an appearance among us as Parry the 

 composer, poet, thinker, historian, teacher and idealist should, or 

 rather must be ; and even after this necessarily incomplete and 

 obviously sketchy survey, no doubt you are as able as I am to foretell 

 its exceptional prominence. 



The life-work of one who, instead of bidding for a more easily 

 gained popularity, preferred rather to stand aside from the crowd 

 must needs wait — maybe wait long — for that full recognition which 

 its very steadfastness of purpose is bound to secure for it. 



It is one thing to have won a distinguished name, quite another 

 to be rightly comprehended, and I may safely say that Parry is as 

 yet known and appreciated only by the comparatively few. 



May we not therefore at a time when native creative art, with all 

 its promise of a great future, is in a state of flux and running into 

 all sorts of eccentric moulds (by no means of our own fashioning), 

 conveniently and profitably turn into that splendid library of essen- 

 tially British music left to us by a master ? 



There are limitations, no doubt. While his critical \vritings 

 abound in well-reasoned and apt analogies between the two sister- 

 Arts, it would be easy to name some who are provided with richer 



