Beyond The Planets?

[Alan Howe]

OK, if I'm just starting to explore Holst (I have The Planets, of course), what other great music did he write?

[dafrieze]

Quite a lot, although The Planets is probably his "biggest" piece in terms of sheer size and even length.  A Choral Symphony is almost the same length, and is for chorus and orchestra, but I've always found it a tough nut to crack.  I'd definitely recommend The Hymn of Jesus, a shorter work for chorus and orchestra that manages to combine mystical ecstasy and stomp dancing.  There's also a wonderful piece of light music (relatively speaking) called Suite de Ballet; the third movement is one of the most sheerly beautiful pieces of music I know, a gorgeous solo violin melody over string accompaniment. 

Your best bet is to get ahold of two Lyrita discs devoted entirely to his shorter works for orchestra:  one is conducted by his daughter Imogen, and the other is conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.  I've had them (first as LPs, later as CDs) for over 30 years now, and they made a Holst aficionado out of me.  And they're filled with wonderful music. 

[Pengelli]

I rather like his Choral Symphony. But the emi conducted by Boult is the one to get. The Hyperion/Helios is not one of their best efforts. The Lyrita cd's are an excellent choice.

[JimL]

I love the various suites.  St. Paul's for strings is just one.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Surprised the above stalwarts of the site have not mentioned Savitri. This is quintessential Holst.

Less so, but nonetheless both delightful and indispensable are the two short operas 'At the Boar's Head' and 'The Wandering Scholar'. Back in the good old days when EMI did much to support British music there was a mid-price EMI CD (in the British Composer's series - or whatever its name was) combining both operas conducted by, respectively, David Atherton and Steuart Bedford. If there's decency left in the world that CD should still be available - and very good it is.

And do yourself a favour: listen again to the Planets. It is of course such a 'familiar' work that we all think we know it thoroughly with the result that we never take the trouble to listen to it. Couple of week's ago a long tedious plod along a motorway was accompanied by the Planets on the radio. Couldn't wait to get back home and listen to it properly. Begad, doing so proper knocked the socks off! It really is a terrific piece, and paradoxically, it is a great pity it is so popular.

[albion]

The Hymn of Jesus is possibly Holst's greatest work (closely followed by The Planets), but I would also strongly recommend the 1913 cantata The Cloud Messenger (the two works are handily coupled in excellent recordings under Hickox on Chandos):



To obtain a comprehensive conspectus of Holst's orchestral output, you can't do any better than the four Lyrita discs containing virtually every important score from A Winter Idyll (1897) to the Scherzo from his projected Symphony (1933-4):



and if it could be obtained I would also urge any prospective Holstian to acquire the deleted Unicorn-Kanchana disc which has the wonderful Hymns from the Rig Veda (virtually complete) and another little-known work which I think is very close to greatness, the Hymn to Dionysus, Op.31, no.2 (1913):



After exploring these, I would recommend the Choral Symphony which is very uneven but contains the sublime Ode on a Grecian Urn as second movement (the Boult recording is preferable). 

As a collector of British composer autographs, one of my most treasured possessions is a page from a birthday-book on which Holst writes and signs the 'Amen' from The Hymn of Jesus -

[Pengelli]

Funny you brought up Holst now. I was just listening to some cd's of early  recordings of orchestral music conducted by Oskar Fried, Henry Wood's atmospheric V-W 'London Symphony' & some others & after that lot it was Gustav Holst's own recordings of 'The Planets'. The Electrical recording he made is well worth a listen,and I rather like it,but the acoustic one has more atmosphere & is widely regarded as the finer of the two. I'm sure Albion & other enthusiasts of British music wil be familiar with these recordings. The acoustic recording doesn't detract from my own enjoyment of the music,although it might put off some people. His 'Beni Mora' sounds very sinister in Holst's interpretation,the background hiss adding it's own strange ambience.
Oskar Fried & Henry Wood are a great listen too!

[Pengelli]

NB: Regarding 'Peter's post above. Holst's 'Choral Symphony' has recently been re-released by emi as a 2cd set,coupled with 'The Hymn of Jesus' & the two short opera's 'The Wandering Scholar' & 'At the Boars Head'. The opera's make a nice couple on cd 2!

[TerraEpon]

If you're gonna get The Cloud Messenger, get the 2fer:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?ordertag=Workrecom76146-11011&album_id=11011

And can't forget the band suites either (as just one example, http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=5516&name_role1=1&comp_id=210&genre=161&bcorder=195&label_id=45 comes with Vaughan Williams band efforts too)

[alberto]

If "great music" is sought, I would suggest the shortish cantata "Ode to Death" (Hickox, Chandos 241-6. Also in a Groves EMI LP anthology, I don't know if ever transferred to cd ).
Great also the short symphonic poem "Egdon Heath": Boult Decca (available?) Previn-Emi; Judd Naxos.
If music "in Planets style" is wanted , I would suggest "The perfect fool"- ballet music: there are/were recordings by Boult, Previn, Mackerras and Douglas Bostock (the last on Scandinavian Classics 220559-205, coupled with early rarities).
I rate highly personal (not always Holst's main feature) the choral Ballets "The Golden Goose" and "The morning of the year" (H.D. Wetton, Hyperion CDA66784: still available?).
Not personal, but entertaining: "A Somerset rhapsody" (Weldon Emi LP; Groves Saga CD; Judd Naxos).
If exotic vein is wanted in state-of-the-art sound, Japanese Suite and Beni Mora Oriental Suite on the recent Chandos CHSA 5086 (A.Davis): but coupled to Planets.
I apologize if something duplicates previous suggestions.

[alberto]

The conductor in Naxos 8.553696 (Egdon Heath; A Somerset Rhapsody) is D.Lloyd-Jones, not J.Judd.

[eschiss1]

I have Imogen Holst's Decca recording of Savitri, The Evening Watch, third group of Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, and 7 Partsongs op.44.  Haven't listened to it in awhile and my reaction was uneven- Savitri (apologies for lack of diacritics) has impressed me somewhat more with time but not greatly, the other works seem better though.

[albion]

Holst, especially in the later works, can sometimes seem a little too unemotionally intellectual - in pieces such as the Fugal Concerto, At the Boar's Head, the Choral Fantasia and parts of the Choral Symphony he is clearly concerned chiefly with patterning harmonic progressions in fourths, juxtaposing different keys as an enharmonic game, or finding old tunes and shoehorning Shakespeare's text into them.  In places the writing almost sounds as though Holst has created an unintentional parody of his own idiosyncracies.

Nevertheless there are some truly wonderful inspirations in all these scores and they deserve to be heard. Imogen Holst wrote about a performance which her father attended towards the end of his life -

"[Dorothy Silk] sang [Holst's The Dream City] a few weeks later at the first public performance at the Wigmore Hall. Holst was so weary at the time that he scarcely heard a note. The other listeners held their breath, swayed by the magic of those gold leaves that never stirred on Betelgeuse. But Holst felt numb. His mind was closed in a grey isolation. He had sunk, once more, into that cold region of utter despair.

After the songs the programme ended with the Schubert Quintet in C. And hearing its familiar sounds, coming as though from a long way off, he gradually began to thaw. The warmth of the music wrapped him round in wave after wave of glowing light.

But thawing is a painful process. And as he listened to it, he realised what he had lost, not only in his music but in his life. He could cling to his austerity. He could fill his days with kindliness and good humour. He could write music that was neither common-place, unmeaning, nor tame. And he could grope after ideas that were colossal and mysterious. But he had missed the warmth of the Schubert Quintet."

Certainly in some of his 1920s scores, Holst failed to achieve a balance between heart and head in his music, but it is a truly fascinating and highly rewarding journey from the Stanfordian Winter Idyll, via the folk-song inspired Somerset Rhapsody, the mysticism of The Cloud Messenger and the Hymns of the Rig Veda, the rapt beauty of Invocation, the comedy of the Suite de Ballet, the exoticism of Beni Mora and the neo-classicism of the Double and Fugal Concertos, leading ultimately to the utter individuality of Egdon Heath and Hammersmith.

As an introduction to some of the many facets of Holst's output, the Naxos disc is excellent -



but before long you'll need to supplement it! 

[alberto]

I apologize a priori if I am going a bit out of the topic. I am always interested in actual concert life. And anyway presence in actual concert life divides the sung from the unsung (or makes the borders uncertain).
I would be glad if some not British contributor (or British with useful information) may write something about Holst performances outside U.K.
My experience in Torino, Italy reports the following.
I attended two Planets' performance (cond. Frank Shipway 1992, cond G.Noseda 2009). I heard live from Naples a radio broadcast performance two-three years ago. John Barbirolli-no less- conducted the Planets in Torino in 1963 (I could hear a broadcast many years after). The Planets is going to be performed in Milan this season.
I attended a couple of performance of St.Paul's Suite.
A concert performance of Savitri was conducted by R.Hickox in Torino around 1985.

[Alan Howe]

I think the problem is that, apart from a few big works, his output is all 'bits and pieces' - nothing of the sort of length or ambition I associate with, say, RVW. Or am I being unfair?