Lesser-Known Composer of the Month: Horatio Parker

Wait, Who?

Horatio Parker was born in Massachussetts and spent most of his career in New York or Boston.  After an early musical education with his mother, he studied composition with George Chadwick in Boston.  From 1882-1885 he attended the Munich Hochshüle für Musik, where he continued his composition studies under the organist Josef Rheinberger.

In 1893 he completed the oratorio Hora novissima, based on portions of Bernard of Cluny's satirical De contemptu mundi, for the Church Choral Society of New York.  The work took off and brought him to national prominence; the following year he recieved an honory degree and a post as professor of music theory at Yale, a position he retained for the rest of his life, later also becoming dean of the Yale School of Music.  During the same period he served as organist first of Trinity Church in Boston, then the collegiate church of St. Nicholas in New York.

Parker's sphere of influence placed him in a group of composers often referred to as the Second New England School, which included his former teacher Chadwick as well as Amy Beach, Edward Macdowell, Arthur Foote, and John Knowles Paine.

Parker's pupils famously included Charles Ives, who later spoke dismissively of him and tried to obscure Parker's influence due to Ives's disapproval of Parker's conservatism and indebtedness to European traditions.

Parker wrote extensively for chorus on both sacred and secular texts, including his two oratorios, Hora novissima and Saint Christopher, and numerous services for SATB choir and organ.  He also produced numerious songs for voice and piano and one extended work for voice and orchestra, Cáhal Mór of the Wine-Red Hand, a setting of James Clarence Mnagan's poem "A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century."

Beginning in 1904 he tried his hand at several stage works: incidental music for two plays, followed by his two operas, Mona and Fairyland, a masque on the tale of Cupid and Psyche, and an allegorical work for band and chorus.

Parker's insrumental output was comparatively limited, the larger orchestral works consisting of two symphonic poems, Vathek and A Northern Ballad, several overtures, and one symphony, with a handful of works for chamber ensemble. 

His keyboard musci includes several collections of smaller pieces for piano and organ, as well as larger organ works including a sonata, a concertond several collections of mostly smaller works