MARTYN PARRY (1945-2004)

Director of Music, Sacred Heart 1981-1995

An appreciation by Bob Rathbone, Director of Music.

The choir had sung their last mass before the summer break and we were all enjoying a gathering at our house in beautiful weather when I heard that Martyn had collapsed at the end of morning mass at Farm Street, where he was director of music. Later, I received a call to say he had died. To some extent, it was not totally unexpected; Martyn had suffered from poor health for several years, dogged by heart problems. But to those who had sung under him or knew him, it was hard to accept that he had actually gone.

I first met Martyn at Royal Holloway College in 1976. I was a first-year music undergraduate about to have my first seminar on Renaissance counterpoint, in fact my first lesson on anything at RHC. The seven or eight of us were, of course, on time, but there was no lecturer in sight! Then the door burst open, and Martyn came in, hugely apologetic about being late (for reasons he explained but I can’t remember), cigarette in one hand, cup of coffee and papers in another. Then, at breakneck speed, we were down to the study of two-part motets by Lassus. We didn’t get a chance to breath until the end, but we learned a great deal! During my three years, I got to know Martyn a little bit better, mainly over drinks in the Happy Man pub round the corner. He was, in addition to being a tutor at Royal Holloway, organist at our sister Jesuit church in Mayfair, universally known as Farm Street. The director of music there at the time was Nicholas Danby, the internationally-acclaimed organist and teacher who had also been at the Sacred Heart in the early 1960’s. I next came into contact with Martyn when I was a fresh-faced teacher at Wimbledon College when he came into the school to introduce himself as the new director of music at the Sacred Heart church in 1981. We renewed our acquaintance over pints in the King of Denmark!

I worked with him on many occasions, mainly as organist. It was terrifying. The merest slip or split note would be met with an icy glare in the mirror. Martyn was a perfectionist and nothing was left to chance. His conducting scores at church are full of precise markings, organ registrations and comments. He was a highly-gifted musician who expected nothing less from his singers. The standards of singing he achieved at the Sacred Heart have never been bettered, and he proudly told me many times how lucky he felt to have the best soprano line of any mixed choir in London (amongst others, Katy Tansey, Antonia Cviic and of course his wife, Alison Wells, one of the country’s leading singers). He could be difficult – he could make you feel very small with one word. He could at times be rude and almost cruel to choir members, and yet they still turned up week by week, as one put it, for their dose of personal abuse and fantastic music-making. He expanded the choir’s repertoire to include more contemporary music, and also music by Liszt, for whom he had the greatest admiration. He chose Liszt’s Missa Choralis as his final mass at the Sacred Heart in October, 1995, and it would be fair to say that he left as a result of disagreements with the then-parish priest, the late Fr Frank Walsh. He had very clear ideas on what sort of music he wanted to do, and yet there are copies of pieces which he composed for the church that incorporated the Latin choir, the children’s choir and the folk group at that time. He was not as narrow-minded as he was painted!  He encouraged me to apply for the post, and gave me invaluable insights into the job when I started. Not long after, his mentor Nicholas Danby died early from heart problems and it was a natural progression for Martyn to succeed him. Sadly, he was to suffer the same fate only a few years later.

Martyn’s Requiem Mass was held at Farm Street – sadly, I was abroad by then, but many members of the choir attended. Mass was offered for him on Sunday, October 10^th at the 11.15 Latin mass. The music hopefully reflected Martyn's tastes - Liszt's Missa Choralis, Palestrina's Exsultate Deo and Thiman's O Panis Dulcissime. We were joined by several ex-members of the choir, and Alison attended the mass. Our prayers and thoughts are with Alison and I fervently hope that some form of memorial might be put into the church to remember the very real contribution that Martyn Parry made to our music and the music of the church in general.