ABSTRACT
Musical history and criticism as a discipline preoccupied Hubert Parry for the whole of his professional musical life – from roughly 1875 until his death in 1918. In his early career perhaps the most significant stimulus was the invitation to become sub-editor of the first edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians to which he contributed over 100 articles. The success and productivity of this work led to his appointment as Professor of Musical History at the newly founded Royal College of Music (RCM) in 1883 and his historiographical work manifested itself in papers for the Musical Association, in lectures for the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London, the RCM, the Royal Institution and other provincial literary and philosophical societies (notably in Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield), in articles for numerous journals, and six books: Studies of Great Composers (London, 1887), A Summary of Musical History (London, 1893), The Art of Music (London, 1893), The Music of the Seventeenth Century (written for the Oxford History of Music, Oxford, 1902), Johann Sebastian Bach (New York and London, 1909) and Style in Musical Art, a compilation of his lectures while Heather Professor at Oxford between 1900 and 1908, published in London in 1911.
