Search - Parry, Barnert, Lpo :: Invocation to Music

Involving

David Saemann | 05/27/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Parry's Invocation to Music is not a masterpiece, but it is a beautifully crafted, lyrically subtle piece of Late Victoriana that certainly will soothe the unquiet soul. This recording, appropriately, was produced under the auspices of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, a fine tribute by Ursula Vaughan Williams to a composer her husband admired deeply as a musician and a man. The text is by Robert Bridges, best known as the man who published Gerard Manley Hopkins's poetry. Bridges's Ode is a fine piece of Victorian verse, and it can be read on its own with considerable pleasure quite divorced from Parry's musical setting. As for the performance, Matthias Bamert's phrasing is a little four-square at times, but in general he leads a committed, beautifully played and sung rendition. The soloists are excellent. I have admired Brian Rayner Cook since hearing his recording of Vaughan Williams's Five Mystical Songs with Bryden Thomson. Anne Dawson's solo with the chorus is achingly beautiful, and if the album photos are any indication, she takes a very nice picture, too. The chorus sings beautifully throughout the piece, and the London Philharmonic clearly finds playing for Bamert to be a pleasant gig. The 1991 sound engineering is a classic example of the Couzens brothers' craft, beautifully balanced, mellifluous, and soothing. I don't know enough about Parry's output to tell where the Invocation to Music rates, but I found it at least as enjoyable as his Symphonic Variations and Blest Pair of Sirens."