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- Parry, Charles Hubert Hastings
Duration: 3 minutes
Description: Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848–1918) composed Jerusalem (And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time) on March 10, 1916, setting the sixteen-line poem beginning “And did those feet in ancient time” that William Blake (1757–1827) had placed in the preface to his epic Milton: A Poem (1804–08). Poet Laureate Robert Bridges requested the setting for the patriotic Fight for Right movement during World War I, although Parry himself became uncomfortable with the movement’s increasingly strident nationalism. Originally written as a unison song with organ accompaniment, it received its premiere on March 28, 1916, at Queen’s Hall, London, at a Fight for Right meeting, sung by a massed choir of approximately 300 voices and conducted by Parry’s former pupil Henry Walford Davies. Its immediate success rapidly transformed the song from an occasional wartime composition into a widely recognized national hymn. Parry subsequently prepared his own orchestration, generally dated 1918, for unison voices and orchestra. This version should be distinguished from Edward Elgar’s much better-known 1922 orchestration, which was first performed at the Leeds Festival and eventually became the version most commonly heard with full orchestra. Today, Jerusalem is by far Parry’s most widely recognized composition and occupies an exceptional place in British musical culture, sung at churches, schools, civic and sporting occasions and, in Elgar’s orchestration, traditionally forming part of the Last Night of the Proms. Parry’s own orchestral version is considerably less frequently encountered, but remains historically important as the composer’s own expansion of the original 1916 setting and as a link between the work’s wartime origins and its subsequent status as one of Britain’s most enduring ceremonial songs. Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2: 4.2.3.0: Timp: Str (9.8.7.6.5 in set): Solo Voice or Unison Chorus. Reprint edition.