The veteran composer, C. Hubert H. Parry (born 1848), has been the most active of this group, no less than three important choral compositions having come from his pen in the first decade of the century. ‘War and Peace’ (1903) is a symphonic ode (text by the composer) in ten numbers, in which ‘the fallen angels, Pride and Hate,’ are pictured as the arch-instigators of all strife. The recompense comes after these furies have ‘drunk the lust of blood.’ Numbers entitled ‘Comradeship,’ ‘Home-Coming,’ ‘Song of Peace,’ and ‘Home,’ lead to a stirring and noble ‘Marching Song of Peace’ and a final prayer, ‘Grant us Thy peace, Lord.’ The Norfolk and Norwich Festival of 1905 brought out his setting in cantata form of Browning’s well-known ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin.’ Here the scholarly writer of dignified choral counterpoint becomes genuinely humorous as the tale unfolds how the rats ravaged ‘Hamelin town by famous Hanover city,’ a characteristic little figure being used to portray the gnawing of the rats. It is rather simple in style and an atmosphere of folk-melody and legend pervades the work. ‘The Vision of Life,’ a symphonic poem for soprano and bass solos, chorus and orchestra, received its first performance at the Cardiff Festival, 1907. The poem by the composer presents a vision of the course of man. Beginning with the savage and cave-dweller, it pictures Greek culture with its worship of the beautiful, the might of Rome with its passion for power which in time gives way to the teachings of Christianity; then comes the mad fury of the French Revolution, the oppression of the slave and the domination of pride--and all finally ‘yields to the spirit of love and of truth’ and the vision pictures a future of peace when ‘Hope and helpfulness unwearied Make all the path a radiant mead; And brother sees in the eyes of brother The trust that makes toil’s best reward.’ The solo voices are The Dreamer and The Spirit of the Vision, and the musical treatment of solo and choral parts is noble and masterful.