Sir Hubert Parry: An Intellectual Portrait

Abstract

Hubert Parry (1848-1918) is known by music listeners today as a composer rather than as a music scholar, yet his contemporaries recognised him as a highly prolific and influential educator and an accomplished writer on musical subjects. This thesis is the first in-depth investigation of its kind into this lesser-known side of Parry’s career, using his literary works as a vantage point from which to evaluate his highly complex persona. Through a close examination of available primary and secondary materials, the thesis aims to develop a biographically and historically consistent view of his writings, while also addressing serious discrepancies in current estimates of his philosophical opinions. Parry’s formative influences, his interests in science, his moral and socially conscious view of art, his views on religion, and his response to Nietzschean philosophy constitute the focus of this study. An attempt is also made towards the end to reconcile these findings with his music, through a contextual examination of the six ‘ethical cantatas’. This research opens new perspectives for Parry scholarship and lays the groundwork for a better understanding of the composer’s unique role in the development of music and musical scholarship in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain.