George Thalben-Ball (organ)
Oriana Madrigal Society
Conductor, Charles Kennedy Scott Motet: Lord let me know mine end Organ:
Chorale Fantasia on 0 God our help Chorale Prelude: St. Cross
Come pretty wag, and sing
Meditation: Sorrow and pain Prithee, why? Organ:
Toccata and Fugue: The Wanderer Motet: At the round earth's imagined corners
Second of two programmes devised and introduced by Michael Pope
In 1908 ill-health compelled Parry to resign from the Chair of Music at
Oxford. Although he regretted this greatly at the time it seems possible that the loss may have been offset by the increased time he had for composition; it is noticeable that the works that appeared from 1909 until his death nine years later have a particular inward quality. In this his final period he turned his attention seriously to the organ, just as Brahms had at the same age, and also produced his finest set of unaccompanied choral works, the motets in the Songs of Farewell, which contain the matured essence of his art.
(The organ items were recorded in the Temple Church, London, by permission of the Treasurer and Masters of the Bench of the Inner and of the Middle Temple)