Another stellar release to mark 100 years since the death of Hubert Parry – and cannily programmed, too, with the towering Songs of Farewell (1913-15) preceded by Mendelssohn’s Sechs Sprüche (1849) to demonstrate Robert Quinney’s assertion (to Jeremy Dibble on page 26 of the June 2018 issue) that ‘Parry is a great figure in the European tradition, a composer who synthesised the neo-Bachian counterpoint of Mendelssohn and Brahms with a unique flair for the English language’. Both of these ravishing a cappella offerings are performed with laudable precision and unfailing perception by the Choir of New College, Oxford. The performance of the former hits radiant heights in ‘At the round earth’s imagined corners’ and ‘Lord, let me know mine end’ to crown a piercingly expressive, deeply humane display that safely merits a place alongside a healthy number of distinguished rivals, among them Richard Marlow and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge (Conifer, 9/87), Ralph Allwood and the Rodolfus Choir (Herald, 10/98), Jeremy Backhouse and the Vasari Singers (Guild), and Nigel Short and Tenebrae (Signum, 12/11).

Quinney and his exemplary singers also let us hear the original version of ‘There is an old belief’ (first given in January 1907), and proceedings are launched with the substantial 1894 anthem Hear my words, ye people. The latter owes a debt to both Samuel Wesley and Bach’s church cantatas, and its concluding chorale on ‘O praise ye the Lord’ (which subsequently became one of the most familiar of hymn tunes) makes for a stirring culmination. Rounding off this uncommonly stimulating anthology, organist Timothy Wakerell displays impressive physical stamina and intellectual acumen in the nourishing, at times almost Regerian Toccata and Fugue that Parry wrote in November 1912.

Beautifully engineered by Adrian Hunter and admirably presented, this Novum issue will surely delight all Parry fans.