Though Hubert Parry is known today for only a handful of works, perhaps most notably Jerusalem and I was glad, he was a prolific composer, writer and teacher and was hugely influential in the revival of English music at the end of the 19th century. In 1894 he became Director of the Royal College of Music and Professor of Music at Oxford and made important contributions to musicology, through Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians and the Oxford History of Music. He was knighted in 1898 and created a baronet in 1903.His compositions include five symphonies, Symphonic Variations, chorale preludes for organ, motets, and many songs. But his determination to restore to English music the great traditions of native literature and to revitalise English attitudes towards composition is shown most forcefully in a series of choral works that demonstrated his gifted use of choral sonorities, massive effects and meticulous word-setting. The first of these was Scenes from Prometheus Unbound (1880). Blest Pair of Sirens (1887) followed, and paved the way for the more expansive oratorios Judith (1888), Job (1892), and King Saul (1894) and his Songs of Farewell (1916-18).

Parry's Blest Pair of Sirens (1887), originally composed for C. V. Stanford's Bach Choir, has also held a place in the history and affections of Halifax Choral Society for over a century, featuring in the opening concert of the Victoria Hall in 1901, its re-opening after refurbishment in 1964 as the New Victoria, and most recently in 2001 as part of the Victoria Theatre's centenary concert. In each case the accompanying orchestra was the Hallé.

Its rather quaint (to 21st Century ears) and unprepossessing title, the opening words of John Milton's At a Solemn Musick, belie the quality of both its powerful verse and its delightful music. Far from being an obscure Victorian curiosity, its noble, masculine treatment of Milton's poetry stands out as a landmark in the development of the English choral tradition. When Elgar, in a lecture at Birmingham University on March 16th, 1905, expressed a wish to see in English music "something broad, noble, chivalrous, healthy, and above all, an out-of-door sort of spirit", Blest Pair of Sirens was just the kind of music he had in mind, as a note in the draft for this lecture clearly testified. Despite Parry's roots in the English church tradition, this music reveals his characteristic openness to the modern influences of his day and especially to the genius and techniques of Brahms. He treated Milton's Ode with athletic, thrusting, diatonic themes and strongly developed them through energetic counterpoint spread in a masterly manner over 8-part choir and orchestra.
© J. S. Whitehead, October 2002

Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure consent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To him that sits thereon,
With saintly shout and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud, uplifted angel-trumpets blow,
And the Cherubic host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits, that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly.
That we on Earth with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportioned sin
Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
O may we soon again renew that song
And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with him and sing in endless morn of light.