Horatio William Parker (September 15, 1863 – December 18, 1919) was an American composer, organist and teacher. He was a central figure in musical life in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 19th century, and is best remembered as the undergraduate teacher of Charles Ives while the composer attended Yale University.
He was born in Auburndale, Massachusetts. His earliest lessons were with his mother. He then studied in Boston with George Whitefield Chadwick, Stephen A. Emery, and John Orth.[1][2] His first professional position was playing the organ at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Dedham, Massachusetts.[3] He was paid a salary of roughly $300 a year from September 1880 to January 1882.[3]
He finished his formal education in Europe, a common destination for a young American composer in the 1880s, where he studied in Munich with Josef Rheinberger. His fellow students at the Royal Music SchoolinMunich[4] included Arthur Whiting and H. H. Huss.[5][6] In Munich Parker composed his first significant works, including a symphony and a dramatic cantata. He also premiered Joseph Rheinberger's Organ Concerto No. 1 in F Major from 1884 there.[7]
After his return to the United States in 1885, he was for two years professor of music in the Cathedral School of St. Paul in Garden City, Long Island. From 1888 to 1893, he was organist of Trinity Church, New York City, and from 1893 to 1901 organist of Trinity Church, Boston.[8] In 1893, Parker became Battell Professor of the theory of music at Yale University. He was appointed Dean of Music at that school in 1904, a position which he held for the rest of his life.[9][10]
Parker was the uncle of Parker Bailey. His daughter's family still summers in Blue Hill, Maine where Parker was part of the early group of that resort's musically inclined rusticators.
Before leaving New York City in 1893, Parker had completed his oratorio, Hora Novissima, set to the opening words of De contemptu mundibyBernard of Cluny. It was widely performed in America; and also in England, in 1899 at Chester, and at the Three Choirs Festival at Worcester, the latter an honour never before paid an American composer.[8] European critics called it one of the finest of American compositions.[1] While he is mostly remembered for this single work, he was a prolific and versatile composer in a mostly conservative Germanic tradition, writing two operas, songs, organ and incidental music, and a copious quantity of works for chorus and orchestra. Influences in his compositions include Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner, as well as Debussy and Elgar in some works which he composed closer to 1900. During his lifetime he was considered to be the finest composer[citation needed][dubious – discuss] in the United States,[by whom?] a superior craftsman writing in the most advanced style.
In 1892, Parker composed the hymn tune "Auburndale" in celebration of the laying of the cornerstone of the new church building of the Episcopal parish he was baptised in, Parish of the Messiah. His father, Charles Edward Parker, had been the architect for that congregation's chapel; famed Episcopal bishop Phillips Brooks laid the cornerstone. "Auburndale" was later published in the 1916 Hymnal ("The Messiah Miracle: A History The Church of the Messiah of West Newton and Auburndale 1871–1971," privately published, 1971).
Parker entered his opera, Mona, into a contest at the Metropolitan Opera winning the prize for best composition in 1911. He won 10,000 dollars and his opera was performed by the company. Mona premiered on March 14, 1912 and ran for four performances. The title role was taken by Louise Homer. He won the Los Angeles $10,000 prize for his opera Fairyland.[10]
The Red Cross Spirit Speaks (J. Finley), Op. 83 (1917)[14]
A. D. 1919, A Commemorative Poem by Brian Hooker Set to Music by Horatio Parker (op.84) ["Published in Memory of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one Yale Men who Gave their Lives in the World War and in Recognition of the Service Rendered to the Allies by the Eight Thousand Yale Men who Responded to the Call to Arms"] - Published by Yale University Press in 1919.
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