Parker, Horatio W.

Text is the German poem by Count Friedrich Leopold, Graf zu Stolberg, translated into English by the composer's mother, Isabella Parker. Composed 1884. First performance Munich, 1884. Dedicated to Jules Jordan.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Text is the poem by J. de Beaufort, in French with English translation by Emily Whitney. Composed 1907. First performance Philadelphia, 27 March 1911. Published erroneously as Op. 64. Dedicated to Mrs. H. Grant Thompson.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

American composer.

Composed 1884. First performance Munich, 7 July 1884, Konigliche Musikhochschule.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

From the opera in 3 acts with libretto by Brian Hooker. Composed 1915. First performance Los Angeles, 1 July 1915. Awarded prize of the National Federation of Women's Clubs.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Composed 1884. First performance Munich, 1884.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Title probably refers to Marcus Atilius Regulus, the Roman hero of the First Punic War (264-241 B.C.). Composed 1884.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Inspired by William Beckford's romantic novel set in ninth-century Baghdad. Composed 1903. First performance in a recording session circa 1967, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, Karl Krueger conductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Composed 1899. First performance Boston, 29 December 1899, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Wilhelm Gericke conductor. Dedicated to Theodore Thomas.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Composed 1884. First performance Munich, 7 July 1884.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Horatio H. Parker was the brother of Jamieson Parker, an architect of Portland, Oregon, best known for his residential and church designs in the 1920s and 1930s.

Composed 1884.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Horatio Parker was born in Auburndale, Massachusetts, on September 15, 1863. He took composition lessons with George Whitefield Chadwick in Boston, and then completed his training with three years of study at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, where Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was numbered among his teachers. After his return to the United States in 1885, Parker held a series of positions as a teacher and church musician.

In 1894 Parker became the Battell Professor of the Theory of Music at Yale University. His appointment and his growing reputation both owed much to the great success of his oratorio Hora Novissima, which received its first performance in New York in 1893, and quickly achieved renown throughout the United States. In 1899, Parker's fame crossed the Atlantic with the performance of Hora Novissima at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, England. Cambridge University awarded Parker an honorary doctorate in 1902.

In New Haven Parker continued to distinguish himself as a composer, teacher, conductor, organist, administrator, and writer. He became the first Dean of the Yale School of Music in 1904. Parker was the founding conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and he directed two other New Haven organizations as well: the New Haven Oratorio Society and the Euterpe Society. In addition to his university courses on music theory, he lectured and wrote on music history at Yale and elsewhere.

Parker composed two operas, both with librettos by his former Yale colleague Brian Hooker. Mona won the Metropolitan Opera Prize for the best American opera in 1911 and was produced at the Met in 1912. Fairyland won the prize offered by the Women's Federated Musical Clubs and was performed in Los Angeles in 1914.

Parker died in Cedarhurst, New York on December 18, 1919. His legacy lived on in his many students. Yale holds the papers of several of them, including Charles Ives, David Stanley Smith (Parker's successor as Dean of the School of Music), and Quincy Porter.