John Orlando Parry
Encyclopedia
John Orlando Parry was an English
actor, pianist, artist, comedian and singer.
(known as Bardd Alaw), was born in London and, at an early age, was taught by his father to sing and to play the harp and the piano. He also studied the harp under Robert Bochsa. As Master Parry, in May 1825, he appeared as a performer on the harp. As a baritone
vocalist he made his début on 7 May 1830 at the Hanover Square Rooms
, in London, on the occasion of Franz Cramer
's concert, when he sang Handel
's Arm, arm, ye brave! with much success.
Parry was also an illustrator and artist.
After receiving lessons from Sir George Smart
in sacred and classical music, he was in demand as a singer at the Antient and Philharmonic concerts, and also at musical festivals in town and country. For him Sigismund Neukomm composed Napoleon's Midnight Review, and several other songs, but his best efforts were in simple ballads. In 1833 he visited Italy
, and received instruction from Luigi Lablache
at Naples
, where he resided some time. At Posilippo he gave a concert in a theatre belonging to impresario Domenico Barbaja, the second part of which comprised a burlesque on Othello
, Lablache taking the part of Brabantio; Calvarola, the Liston of Naples, playing the Moor; and Parry as Desdemona, dressed à la Madame Vestris
, and singing Cherry Ripe. He also appeared before the king and queen
of the Two Sicilies, and gave imitations of Lablache, Rubini, and Malibran in a mock Italian trio.
He returned to England in 1834, after perfecting his command of the Italian language. He married, on 30 June 1835, Anne Combe, the daughter of Henry Combe, a surgeon. They had a daughter Maria. In July 1836 he gave his first benefit concert at the Hanover Square Rooms, when Malibran sang for him, and he joined her in Mazzinghi's duet When a little farm we keep. Persuaded to try the stage, he came out at the St. James's Theatre, just then built by his father's old friend, John Braham, on 29 Sept. 1836, in a burletta called The Sham Prince, written and composed by his father. He was well received, and on 6 Dec. in the same year he appeared in John Poole's Delicate Attentions, and in a burletta, The Village Coquettes, written by Charles Dickens
, with music by John Hullah. Subsequently he was for a brief season at the Olympic Theatre
. By 1839, Parry was becoming known as a comic singer, and in 1840 he composed a comic opera
called Wanted, a Governess.
and Josef Staudigl
, in pieces written expressly for him by Albert Smith
. Parry afterwards accompanied Camillo Sivori
, Franz Liszt
, Sigismund Thalberg, and others in a concert tour through the United Kingdom
, and his powers as a pianist and his originality as a buffo vocalist were widely recognised. In 1849 Albert Smith wrote an entertainment entitled Notes Vocal and Instrumental, which Parry produced on 25 June 1850 at the Store Street Music Hall, Bedford Square, London, and illustrated with large water-colour paintings executed by himself. In it he indulged in monologue, sang in different voices, played the piano, and made rapid changes of his dress. The entertainment proved more acceptable to the audience than any single-handed performance since the time of Charles Mathews the elder. He was afterwards seen at Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate Street, at Willis's Rooms, King Street, St. James's, and in the provinces. On 17 August 1852 he brought out a new solo entertainment at Store Street, called The Portfolio for Children of all Ages, which he continued with much success until August 1853. The strain of this engagement, however, proved excessive, and for a time he suffered from mental derangement. When somewhat recovered, he became organist at St. Jude's Church, Southsea
, and gave lessons in singing.
On 4 June 1860, he joined Thomas German Reed
and his wife
at the Gallery of Illustration, Regent Street
, London. Here he performed for nearly nine years, presenting a series of droll impersonations and musical monologues that inspired other comedians, including George Grossmith
. He built comic sketches with musical illustrations around his own comic songs. He wrote these entertainments, composed his own music, and played his own accompaniments.
, which realised £1,300. His later years were embittered by the loss in 1877, through the defalcations of his solicitor, of the greater part of his forty years' savings.
He died at the residence of his daughter, Pembroke Lodge, East Molesey
, Surrey
, at the age of 69, and was buried in East Molesey cemetery. A miniature portrait of Parry by Maclise is in the possession of Horace N. Pym, Esq.
Duets: Fond Memory (1855), A B C (1863), Tell me, gentle stranger (1863), We are two roving minstrels (1864), and Flow, gentle Deva (1872). He also wrote the glees
, Come, fairies, trip it on the grass (prior to 1851) and Oh! it is that her lov'd one's away (1853), and Parables set to Music, three numbers (1859), besides much music for the piano, including many polkas.
The Melodists' Club awarded to Parry prizes for the following songs: The Inchcape Bell, The Flying Dutchman, A Heart to let, Sweet Mary mine, The Gipsy's Tambourine Song, Nant Gwynnant, You know, Constancy, Fair Daphne, and The Days of Yore. Some of his songs were arranged as quadrilles by L. Negri in 1842, and L. G. Jullien's Buffa Quadrilles in 1844 were also composed from the tunes of his vocal melodies.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
actor, pianist, artist, comedian and singer.
Early career
Parry, the only son of Welsh musician John ParryJohn Parry (Bardd Alaw)
John Parry , commonly known by his bardic name "Bardd Alaw", was a Welsh harpist and composer.-Biography:Parry was born in Denbigh, in northern Wales, the son of a stonemason...
(known as Bardd Alaw), was born in London and, at an early age, was taught by his father to sing and to play the harp and the piano. He also studied the harp under Robert Bochsa. As Master Parry, in May 1825, he appeared as a performer on the harp. As a baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
vocalist he made his début on 7 May 1830 at the Hanover Square Rooms
Hanover Square Rooms
The Hanover Square Rooms or the Queen's Concert Rooms were assembly rooms established, principally for musical performances, on the corner of Hanover Square, London, by Sir John Gallini in partnership with Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774. For exactly one century this was the...
, in London, on the occasion of Franz Cramer
Franz Cramer (violinist)
Franz or François Cramer was an English violinist and conductor who was Master of the King's/Queen's Musick from 1837 until his death....
's concert, when he sang Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Arm, arm, ye brave! with much success.
Parry was also an illustrator and artist.
After receiving lessons from Sir George Smart
George Thomas Smart
Sir George Thomas Smart was an English musician.Smart was born in London, his father being a music-seller. He was a choir-boy at the Chapel Royal, and was educated in music, becoming an expert violinist, organist, teacher of singing and conductor...
in sacred and classical music, he was in demand as a singer at the Antient and Philharmonic concerts, and also at musical festivals in town and country. For him Sigismund Neukomm composed Napoleon's Midnight Review, and several other songs, but his best efforts were in simple ballads. In 1833 he visited Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and received instruction from Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache was an Italian opera singer of French and Irish heritage. He was most noted for his comic performances, possessing a powerful and agile bass voice, a wide range, and adroit acting skills: Leporello in Don Giovanni was one of his signature roles.-Biography:Luigi Lablache was born in...
at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, where he resided some time. At Posilippo he gave a concert in a theatre belonging to impresario Domenico Barbaja, the second part of which comprised a burlesque on Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
, Lablache taking the part of Brabantio; Calvarola, the Liston of Naples, playing the Moor; and Parry as Desdemona, dressed à la Madame Vestris
Lucia Elizabeth Vestris
Lucia Elizabeth Vestris was an English actress and a contralto opera singer, appearing in Mozart and Rossini works. While popular in her time, she was more notable as a theatre producer and manager...
, and singing Cherry Ripe. He also appeared before the king and queen
Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies
Ferdinand II was King of the Two Sicilies from 1830 until his death.-Family:Ferdinand was born in Palermo, the son of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and his wife and first cousin Maria Isabella of Spain.His paternal grandparents were King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Queen Marie...
of the Two Sicilies, and gave imitations of Lablache, Rubini, and Malibran in a mock Italian trio.
He returned to England in 1834, after perfecting his command of the Italian language. He married, on 30 June 1835, Anne Combe, the daughter of Henry Combe, a surgeon. They had a daughter Maria. In July 1836 he gave his first benefit concert at the Hanover Square Rooms, when Malibran sang for him, and he joined her in Mazzinghi's duet When a little farm we keep. Persuaded to try the stage, he came out at the St. James's Theatre, just then built by his father's old friend, John Braham, on 29 Sept. 1836, in a burletta called The Sham Prince, written and composed by his father. He was well received, and on 6 Dec. in the same year he appeared in John Poole's Delicate Attentions, and in a burletta, The Village Coquettes, written by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, with music by John Hullah. Subsequently he was for a brief season at the Olympic Theatre
Olympic Theatre
The Olympic Theatre, sometimes known as the Royal Olympic Theatre, was a 19th-century London theatre, opened in 1806 and located at the junction of Drury Lane, Wych Street, and Newcastle Street. The theatre specialised in comedies throughout much of its existence...
. By 1839, Parry was becoming known as a comic singer, and in 1840 he composed a comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
called Wanted, a Governess.
Concert room and German Reed entertainments
In 1842 he forsook the stage for the concert-room, and was singing, with Anna ThillonAnna Thillon
Anna Thillon was an operatic singing sensation in the United States, based in San Francisco, California and then New York, New York. She performed in that city's first professional season.In London at the Princess's Theatre in 1848, Jan...
and Josef Staudigl
Josef Staudigl
Josef Staudigl was an Austrian bass singer.- Life :Staudigl attended the school in Wiener Neustadt and, from 1825, was a novice in the Benedictine monastery of Stift Melk. In 1827 he went to Vienna to study surgery there...
, in pieces written expressly for him by Albert Smith
Albert Richard Smith
Albert Richard Smith , was an English author, entertainer, and mountaineer.-Biography:Smith was born at Chertsey, Surrey. The son of a surgeon, he studied medicine in London and in Paris, and his first literary effort was an account of his life there, which appeared in the Mirror. He gradually...
. Parry afterwards accompanied Camillo Sivori
Camillo Sivori
Ernesto Camillo Sivori, was an Italian virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in Genoa, he was the only pupil of Paganini. He also studied with Restano, Giacomo Costa and Dellepiane....
, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
, Sigismund Thalberg, and others in a concert tour through the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and his powers as a pianist and his originality as a buffo vocalist were widely recognised. In 1849 Albert Smith wrote an entertainment entitled Notes Vocal and Instrumental, which Parry produced on 25 June 1850 at the Store Street Music Hall, Bedford Square, London, and illustrated with large water-colour paintings executed by himself. In it he indulged in monologue, sang in different voices, played the piano, and made rapid changes of his dress. The entertainment proved more acceptable to the audience than any single-handed performance since the time of Charles Mathews the elder. He was afterwards seen at Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate Street, at Willis's Rooms, King Street, St. James's, and in the provinces. On 17 August 1852 he brought out a new solo entertainment at Store Street, called The Portfolio for Children of all Ages, which he continued with much success until August 1853. The strain of this engagement, however, proved excessive, and for a time he suffered from mental derangement. When somewhat recovered, he became organist at St. Jude's Church, Southsea
Southsea
Southsea is a seaside resort located in Portsmouth at the southern end of Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire in England. Southsea is within a mile of Portsmouth's city centre....
, and gave lessons in singing.
On 4 June 1860, he joined Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable...
and his wife
Priscilla Horton
Priscilla Horton, later Priscilla German Reed , was a popular English singer and actress, known for her role as Ariel in W. C. Macready's production of The Tempest in 1838 and "fairy" burlesques at Covent Garden Theatre. Later, she was known, along with her husband, Thomas German Reed, for...
at the Gallery of Illustration, Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...
, London. Here he performed for nearly nine years, presenting a series of droll impersonations and musical monologues that inspired other comedians, including George Grossmith
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
. He built comic sketches with musical illustrations around his own comic songs. He wrote these entertainments, composed his own music, and played his own accompaniments.
Retirement
On 15 July 1869 a complimentary benefit was given him by a distinguished party of amateurs at the Lyceum Theatre, and on 7 February 1877 he took a farewell benefit at the Gaiety TheatreGaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
, which realised £1,300. His later years were embittered by the loss in 1877, through the defalcations of his solicitor, of the greater part of his forty years' savings.
He died at the residence of his daughter, Pembroke Lodge, East Molesey
East Molesey
Molesey is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England. Situated on the outskirts of Greater London, approximately from Charing Cross, it is a typical suburban area. There are two distinct areas in the town: West and East Molesey...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, at the age of 69, and was buried in East Molesey cemetery. A miniature portrait of Parry by Maclise is in the possession of Horace N. Pym, Esq.
Works
Parry was the composer of numerous songs and ballads, all of which he sang in his own entertainments. The following were printed: Wanted, a Governess (1840), Fair Daphne (1840), Anticipations of Switzerland (1842), The Accomplished Young Lady (1843), My déjeuner à la Fourchette (1844), The Polka explained (1844), Fayre Rosamond (1844), Matrimony (1845), Young England (1845), Miss Harriet and her Governess (1847), The Flying Dutchman (1848), Coralie (1853), Charming Chloe Cole (1854), Oh, send me not away from home (1854), Little Mary of the Dee (1855), In lonely bow'r bemoans the turtle dove (1855), The Tyrolese Fortune-teller (1867), Bridal Bells (1868), Cupid's Flight (1868), Don't be too particular (1868), Take a bumper and try (1874), and The Musical Wife (1878).Duets: Fond Memory (1855), A B C (1863), Tell me, gentle stranger (1863), We are two roving minstrels (1864), and Flow, gentle Deva (1872). He also wrote the glees
Glee (music)
A glee is an English type of part song spanning the late baroque, classical and early romantic periods. It is usually scored for at least three voices, and generally intended to be sung unaccompanied. Glees often consist of a number of short, musically contrasted movements and their texts can be...
, Come, fairies, trip it on the grass (prior to 1851) and Oh! it is that her lov'd one's away (1853), and Parables set to Music, three numbers (1859), besides much music for the piano, including many polkas.
The Melodists' Club awarded to Parry prizes for the following songs: The Inchcape Bell, The Flying Dutchman, A Heart to let, Sweet Mary mine, The Gipsy's Tambourine Song, Nant Gwynnant, You know, Constancy, Fair Daphne, and The Days of Yore. Some of his songs were arranged as quadrilles by L. Negri in 1842, and L. G. Jullien's Buffa Quadrilles in 1844 were also composed from the tunes of his vocal melodies.