While a stu­dent at Eton, Par­ry took mu­sic les­sons from George El­vey. The in­struct­ion was so suc­cess­ful that Par­ry earned a Ba­che­lor’s of Mu­sic from Ox­ford at age 18. Af­ter grad­u­a­tion, he worked for three years as a clerk at the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny of Lloyds of Lon­don. He pub­lished his first or­ches­tral work in 1878 (Pi­a­no Con­cer­to in F# Mi­nor), and went on to com­pose a wide va­ri­e­ty of works: or­a­tor­i­os, li­bret­tos, cham­ber piec­es, can­ta­tas, odes, chor­al works and so­lo songs.

In 1883, Par­ry be­came a teach­er at the Roy­al Coll­ege of Mu­sic; he rose to be its se­cond di­rect­or, 1894-1918. Dur­ing this per­i­od, he pub­lished sev­er­al books, in­clud­ing The Art of Mu­sic (1893 & 1896) and The Mu­sic of the Sev­en­teenth Cen­tu­ry (1902). He was knight­ed in 1898, and made a bar­o­net in 1903.

Sources

Music

1. Amberley
2. Angmering
3. Gaudium Cæleste
4. Intercessor
5. Jerusalem
6. Laudate Dominum
7. Repton
8. Rustington