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Today in history - Coronation composer Hubert Parry dies

07 October 2013

St Paul's is famously the burial place for many Great Britons, with military leaders, poets, artists and scientists all represented in the crypt.

A number of this country's finest musicians and composers are also interred within the Cathedral, none more notable or influential in 19th and 20th century choral music than Sir Charles Hubert Parry.

Born in 1848, by age 33 Parry was a professor at the Royal College of Music, becoming the head of the college 12 years later.

While Parry's compositions did include orchestral works and even an opera, it is his church choral music and songs for which he is most famed. Chief amongst his works which remain known today are the hymn tune Repton, (Dear Lord and Father of Mankind); his musical setting of William Blake's short poem And did those feet in ancient time (Jerusalem); and for the great anthem I Was Glad, set to the words of Psalm 122 and written for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1911.

This anthem was also sung at the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and also at the service of thanksgiving for HM The Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002.



Whilst never the most acclaimed of English composers either in the UK or overseas, it is known that through both his academic work and composition, Parry was a great influence on Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.

Aged 70, Parry fell victim to the global Spanish Flu pandemic and died in west Sussex on 7 October 1918.

He was buried in the crypt of St Paul's, alongside fellow musicians Arthur Sullivan and William Boyce.



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