Stanford or Parry?

[Alan Howe]

...and am now playing Parry's 2nd. Again, I prefer the sense of a mighty flood of sound (Parry), as opposed to the leaner athleticism of Stanford. Very interesting...

[Alan Howe]

For me Parry's 4th is his symphonic masterpiece. Elgar must have heard this - and inwardly digested it. Such power, such a flood of invention. Wonderful.

[bulleid_pacific]

Parry for me.  3, 4 and 5 grip me from first bar to last.  The Fourth is probably the finest, but I love the breezy quality of 3 too.  With Stanford, there are many beauties but my attention is usually not maintained so strongly.  I love the Boult version of Parry 5 which was his very last recording at the end of a marvellous career.  May be rose tinted specs from when I bought it on HMV LP in Queens Road, Bristol in 1980 but I think it stands up very well (I think Boult was around 90 at the time.)  I remember thinking the playing was a bit ragged then, but strangely I don't notice that so much now.  The Symphonic Variations are rather splendid too.....

[Alan Howe]

Phew! I thought it was just me!

[Mark Thomas]

As you wrote earlier, Alan, it's good to disagree! For me, Parry's Symphonic Variations is his finest orchestral work by some way and it really does deserve a permanent place in the repertory, at least in the UK.

[semloh]

Parry's Symphonic Variations is his finest orchestral work by some way ... unreservedly agree, Mark, and when it comes to the symphonies, I think Stanford's 5th is a winner. They are the two works with which I am most familiar, and maybe I am unfairly neglecting the Parry symphonies. Fortunately, of course, we can have both Stanford and Parry, and in abundance these days. I am sure Sir Adrian would have been chuffed! 

[Jimfin]

As for which cycle: I think they are both excellent, and I listen to both. It would be nice if someone could do a second Parry cycle: no 5 is the only one I know more than one version of. Oh, and no. 3 in that "Masters of the English Musical Renaissance collection"

[alberto]

I am a fan of Parry since remote days when to find records of English  music  (not by masters like Elgar) was very difficult and rare.
For me the opening work were the Symphonic Variations (Lyrita, Boult), still my favourite; later the Third Symphony (Forlane, Hager), later again the last Boult record with the Fifth , the Elegy for Brahms and again the Symphonic Variations (which were conducted more than once in Italy by....Giuseppe Martucci).
Stanford came much later, in the Cd period. Among the Symphonies , I prefer the Third.
While I have never listened a boring work by Stanford,  the single work which appears to me of very high status is the Second Piano concerto.
In the end my prefence certainly goes to Parry, which appears to me a more personal voice.

[simonwykes]

Stanford's symphonies are formally correct and well orchestrated but I have always found them to be on the dry side. They do not visit my CD player very often. However I am always listening to Parry's five. I have known the fifth since about 1980 in Boult's fine performance and the others later on. I would say that the Fourth is the greatest, but at the moment the First is my favourite. I normally listen to it when I travel up to Norfolk as it lasts almost exactly for the rail journey from Colchester to Diss. In fact this music is mixed up in my mind with the countryside on that journey. Not I suppose what Parry had in mind!
Parry's orchestral music is well catered for in recordings but there are still many choral works which are crying out for performances and recordings.

[eschiss1]

In the case of both composers much of their chamber music was - remains - unpublished, sometimes still unrecorded. (Half of Stanford's string quartets unpublished, for example...) (They fared a little better with their orchestral music, but Stanford's symphonies have been twice recorded (as a complete cycle- Chandos, Naxos- I may be forgetting a third) despite their being I think no published versions of nos.5 & 6 (and less surprisingly 1 &2) and only a reduced version of 4. I'm guessing in some cases it may only be that _some_ of these works were unpublished widely but were maybe available to prospective performers from publishers (or libraries, e.g. RAM or RCM) in manuscript parts, but...
(I'm fairly sure that even the rare record company that considers recording (e.g.) all 3 of Parry's string quartets may pass on to other projects if a score and parts aren't available. Which they are, for #3 (published 1995- and the only one broadcast on BBC and the only one recorded.) ... Anyways. Availability may count in these things, is all I say...
I'm a bit struck that Dibble seems to hold on to his editions, on the whole, after he makes them, speaking of; I don't see them published anywhere. (The Communion Service ©2010 excepted of course.) But no matter...)

*A new edition of Stanford's string quartet no.4 Op.99 is the product of (and discussed in) a dissertation by Colleen Ferguson for the University of Iowa, 2015, by the way. ... I think I'm going to see if I can interloan that dissertation (maybe not, I don't know if U Iowa and my library do inter loans, but nothing ventured)... just discovered it and I have been curious about that never-(before) published work of his... ... Neat.

[Alan Howe]

How would you compare the two composers, Eric? Any thoughts?

[Jimfin]

I would agree that Parry has much more distinctive personality than Stanford, who often seemed to sound like someone else, Verdi in his requiem, Rachmaninov in the Second Piano Concerto, probably Mascagni in Lorenza. But the 3rd, 5th and 6th Symphonies in particular really transport me with their energy and sureness of touch. It's interesting to see how everyone is pretty decided on this issue, at least everyone who has chosen to comment.

[FBerwald]

I came across this while trying to read more about Parry's Piano Concerto ....



This excerpt from Seven Unpublished Organ Works by Sir C. Hubert H. Parry in Bodleian Library - mentions 2 Piano Concertos. Any idea if this is true or if this is a misprint.

[Alan Howe]

Grove online has this intriguing entry:

Piano Concerto, g, 1869, inc

I'm assuming that this refers to an incomplete early Piano Concerto in G minor, dating from 1869. Wonder where the manuscript might be?

[Alan Howe]

I wonder how many people know Parry's orchestral Concertstück of 1877? It's actually quite a progressive-sounding work and makes one wonder just how Parry's music would have developed had he continued down this particular stylistic and aesthetic path (the influences are clearly early Wagner and Liszt rather than Brahms).

Knocks Henry Cotter Nixon into a cocked hat, by the way. (Sorry, Martin!)