Parker grad­u­at­ed from Har­vard Coll­ege and pre­pared hims­elf for the pro­fess­ion of law, but his in­tense love of mu­sic con­quered ev­er­y­thing else. Af­ter stu­dy­ing in Bos­ton, he went to Leip­zig, where he stu­died un­der the mas­ters and quick­ly be­came a pro­fi­cient com­pos­er and per­form­er. He re­turned to Bos­ton in 1854, and soon took a lead­ing po­si­tion in the mu­sic­al com­mun­i­ty there. In 1862, he or­gan­ized the Parker Club, an am­a­teur vo­cal­ist as­so­ci­a­tion per­formed such works as Gade’s “Com­pa­la,” Men­dels­sohn’s “Wal­purg­is Night,” Ber­li­oz’ “Flight into Egypt,” Schu­mann’s “Par­a­dise and the Pe­ri” and “Pil­grim­age of the Rose.” As of 1886, Park­er was or­ganist at Bos­ton’s Trin­i­ty Church and taught or­gan, pi­a­no, and har­mo­ny. He al­so held the post of or­gan­ist for the Bos­ton Han­del and Hay­dn So­ci­e­ty, and was a pro­fess­or at the Coll­ege of Mu­sic as­so­ci­at­ed with Bos­ton Un­i­ver­si­ty. He com­posed his “Re­demp­tion Hymn” (words from Isai­ah 51) in 1877, for so­lo con­tral­to and chor­us; it was first per­formed by the Han­del and Hay­dn So­ci­e­ty, and sub­se­quent­ly by mu­sic­al so­ci­e­ties all over Amer­i­ca.

Sources

Music

1. Easter Angels