ABSTRACT
In 1893 George Bernard Shaw reluctantly attended the Middlesex Choral Union performance of Hubert Parry’s short oratorio Job. Shaw, with critical acumen and biting satirical wit, had exposed all the oratorio’s grave defects. By the time Shaw’s review appeared the industrious Parry was already engaged on yet another subject, that would have ‘taxed to the utmost’ as Shaw said in the review composers of greater genius, Robert Browning’s mythical–psychological labyrinth, the narrative poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Shortly after Shaw’s review appeared, Parry manifested his laudable concern for other members of his profession: he discovered that his pupil Richard Walthew was also working on a setting of The Pied Piper. In deference Parry put his own version aside until 1905. Parry possessed a brilliant intellect, almost renaissance in its sharpness, wide-ranging comprehension, and ability to realize his creative aspirations.
