Charles Hubert Parry's choral-orchestral works may not be for everyone -- those who disdain joyful noises need not apply -- but for those for whom
Mendelssohn's choral-orchestral music is wonderful but too old-fashioned and
Elgar's choral-orchestral music is marvelous but too new-fangled, they'll be just the thing. Sounding at their best like an English
Brahms with just the faintest touch of early
Wagner in the harmonies, Parry's choral-orchestral works combine warm colors, appealing melodies, impressive effects, and immediately apprehensible forms with not-too-overwrought rhetoric and not-too-overheated drama in an attractive if not particularly inspired personal style. In this two-disc set containing three large-scale works -- The Soul's Ransome, The Lotus-Eaters, and Invocation to Music -- along with two shorter but no less massive works -- Blest pair of Sirens and I was glad -- Parry's choral music is given entirely sympathetic and nearly wholly persuasive performances. Swiss conductor
Matthias Bamert leads the
London Philharmonic in the three large-scale works, while English conductor
Richard Hickox leads the
London Symphony in the two shorter works, and while
Hickox seems more relaxed with the music's language and confident in its value,
Bamert seems more attentive to the music's felicities and more passionate about its worth. Chandos' early digital sound is clear in the quiet parts and huge in the loud parts, but a bit fuzzy in the thick parts -- and, given that the works are scored for vast chorus accompanied by a huge orchestra, most of the music is thick parts, and thus most of the sound is a bit fuzzy.