Joseph Parry

Born into a large family, Parry left school to work in the local coal mines when he was nine years of age.

In 1854 the family emigrated to the United States, settling at Danville, Pennsylvania, where Parry again found employment at an iron works.

Though Parry had a great interest in music, he had no opportunity to study it until there was a temporary closure of the Rough and Ready Iron Works.

During a return visit to Wales for the National Eisteddfod at Llandudno, Parry was offered two music scholarships, but was unable to accept due to family obligations.

[13] Although he had sung in church choirs in Wales and the United States, Parry received no formal music lessons until he was 17 and living in Danville.

[7][15] Parry was offered the opportunity to study for a year under Dr Davies of Swansea, followed by a one-year scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music.

[6][c] In August 1868 Parry and his family arrived in England, where he began a three-year study at the Royal Academy of Music under William Sterndale Bennett and Manuel Garcia.

[28][29] Parry became a candidate for principal of the Guildhall School of Music in 1896; the vacancy was due to the death of Sir Joseph Barnby.

[32] He remained at the university and continued his work as an eisteddfod adjudicator, a conductor at Cymanfaoedd Canu, and as a performer and lecturer throughout Wales and the United States until the time of his death.

[37][38][39] While all of Parry's children are said to have had musical talent, his eldest, Joseph Haydn, followed in his father's footsteps as a composer and teacher.

[43] Parry asked an old friend to notify the Welsh community in the United States that he would be visiting and would adjudicate at eisteddfodau, lecture or lead cymanfaoedd canu if desired.

[46][47][48] His last major work, an opera entitled The Maid of Cefn Ydfa, premiered at the Grand Theatre in Cardiff in late December 1902.

[50] Since his compositions were based primarily on Welsh subjects, many of Parry's friends believed it would have been to his advantage to have settled in London, where there were more cosmopolitan experiences to draw inspiration from.

[55] Parry, who had planned a tour of Australia and the US for 1904, lay in his sick bed when The Maid of Cefn Ydfa was signed for performances by three opera companies; he was never able to be told of the good news.

They lined the route from Parry's home to Christ Church, where the family worshipped and to the churchyard at St Augustine's.

[23][40] Parry and others considered it to be his best work; the problem with the oratorio was that it was difficult to perform and that the score for the composition is 305 pages long.

[40][46] Parry is believed to have composed 27 complete works, among them ten operas, five cantatas and two oratorios, as well as many songs and hymns.

[7] Over 100 years after his death, one of his unknown works, Te Deum, was discovered by accident in the National Library of Wales archives.

[40][69][n] The music, written by Parry, was first published in 1879 by Stephen and Jones in Ail Lyfr Tonau ac Emynau (English tr.

It was paired with Charles Wesley's words, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul", and first sung at the English Congregational Church in Portland Street in Aberystwyth, where Parry worked as an organist.

Those who were members of Welsh nonconformist churches needed reassurance that this was not a theatrical performance, as acting and theatres were held in as much contempt as taverns.

The majority of participants in the first performance of Blodwen were music students of Parry; his two older sons were also part of the production, playing piano and harmonium.

[28] Edward-Rhys Harry reconstructed Parry's setting of the Te Deum taken from the text of The Book of Common Prayer.

[84] He also compiled Dr Parry's Book of Songs, which was a collection of his own works, and wrote Elfenau Cerddoriaeth ("Elements of Music"), a Welsh handbook on theory, in 1888.

[40] After his move to Penarth, Parry became involved in journalism, writing regular columns for both The Cardiff Times and The South Wales Weekly News.

[35][87] Additionally Parry wrote what might very well be the first original work for brass band by an established composer, his "Tydfil Overture" (c. 1874-80 – i.e. pace Percy Fletcher's tone poem Labour and Love of 1913).

In 1947, another son of Merthyr Tydfil, Jack Jones, based his novel, Off to Philadelphia in the Morning , on the events in the life of Joseph Parry.

Robert David Thomas while living in Pennsylvania was performed for the first time in Wales to mark the centenary of the composer's death.

[1] Parry's home was refurbished in 2016 through funds from a local company and was reopened to the public beginning on what would have been the composer's 175th birthday.

[103][104] The Susquehanna Valley Welsh Society holds an annual Cymanfa Canu in his honour at the church on the Sunday nearest his May 21 birthday.