Hubert Parry is one of the great figures of 20th-century British music. You almost certainly know his music … Jerusalem is performed every year at the Last Night of the Proms, and I Was Glad was heard by millions at the last coronation.
And yet, he’s not so well known today. Ask most concert-goers whether they’ve heard a Parry symphony, and the answer is almost certainly no.
Conductor Dominic Grier thinks that’s a serious injustice … and he’s doing something about it!
On Sunday 7th June, we’ll be performing Parry’s Symphony No.3 with the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra. So when we met to record a podcast that will be released later in the year, it was inevitable that Parry would come up!
Dominic actually has a long relationship with Parry’s music, and his interest began after an early discovery of a Naxos recording of the Second Symphony. He has a growing conviction that the Third Symphony, which was once the most-performed symphony by an English composer, deserves to be heard again on the concert platform.
There’s a local dimension too. Parry spent much of his life at his home in Rustington, just along the South Coast from Worthing – so this concert something of a homecoming. As Dominic explains, it was that connection that helped convince him to programme the symphony with the Worthing Philharmonic.
We talked about the broader context too. It’s so easy to programme English music in a way that feels narrow and insular sometimes, but when you listen to Parry’s music alongside the wider European influences that shaped him – Wagner, César Franck, Mozart – it makes a lot of sense.
For anyone coming to the concert who has never heard a Parry symphony before, the message is simple: this is accessible, emotionally direct music! If you know Jerusalem, you already know something of what to expect. And if the concert leaves you wanting more, Dominic has already programmed Parry’s Symphonic Variations for next season!
Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra performs Parry’s Third Symphony on Sunday 8 June at 3pm, Worthing Assembly Hall. Tickets from the Worthing Theatres and Museums box office.
