Beyond The Planets?

[albion]

No, it's a fair comment - Holst's more concentrated style generally did not result in large-scale canvasses and he never achieved the productivity of many of his contemporaries (weak eyesight and painful neuritis in his hands made working on large scores especially difficult): I suppose that his catalogue could indeed be viewed a 'bits and pieces', but if so they are bits and pieces of a singularly original and fascinating musical mind. 

[Pengelli]

Like Brian,he's a bit like a cryptic crossword. I only wish he'd been able to record more. As a fan of ealy acoustic & electrical recordings I would have been quite happy to follow a Holst conducted 'Hymn of Jesus' through almost any amount of snap,crackle,hiss & pop. (Or was that 'Ready Brek?').

[Pengelli]

I wonder if anyone perusing these posts might possess an off air copy of the Radio 3 broadcast of Holst's opera 'The Perfect Fool'? Hint! Hint! Chandos have shown some interest in it recently. As a 'magic potion' it would go well with their 'Poisoned Kiss'!

[albion]

I apologize a priori if I am going a bit out of the topic. I would be glad if some not British contributor (or British with useful information) may write something about Holst performances outside U.K.

Alberto, very little of Holst, beyond The Planets is played even here in the UK. He seems just destined to be known to the wider public as a one-work composer - a travesty when it would be wonderful to encounter Invocation, The Cloud Messenger, the Hymn to Dionysus, Beni Mora, Egdon Heath or Hammersmith in live performance: even The Hymn of Jesus is a rarity in concert-halls (I sang in one rendition a couple of years ago), which is a scandal in a supposedly civilised country!

I wonder if anyone perusing these posts might possess an off air copy of the Radio 3 broadcast of Holst's opera 'The Perfect Fool'?

Yes, this would be another recording well worth hearing! The details are as follows -

Rosa Mannion, sop (The Princess); Richard Suart, bar (The Wizard); Arthur Davies, ten (The Troubadour); Gidon Saks, bar (The Traveller); Gillian Knight, mezzo (The Fool's mother); Michael Praed, speaker (The Peasant); Camillia Johansen, sop; Ann-Marie Ives, sop; Christine Bryan, mezzo/ Chorus of Opera North/ BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/ Vernon Handley (br. 25.12.1995)

Please get in touch if you can possibly help with this request!

[eschiss1]

well, some of the big works were only rediscovered recently (immature works such as the Cotswold symphony) or are fairly rare on recording and concert I think (the choral symphony etc.) but that seems true. (It's not my problem with Holst- I think I more, or less, stand in Sorabji's corner on this one (that is, agreeing with his criticism of the composer), though not nearly as absolutely or harshly, and not nearly consistently... but anyway.)

[Pengelli]

Apologies Albion,you're the sort of 'curator' here,when it comes to off air treasure,but being able to listen to the complete performance of Holst's opera 'The Perfect Fool' would be like finding 'Atlantis', (did they have composers?) to some people,or that hidden room that's supposed to be under the 'Sphinx'!!! And someone,someone out there who might even just chance on these forums could have it,even if the regulars don't. So if anyone surfs on to this post & reads this we REALLY would like to hear your copy!
Secondly,on another point. There seems to be a bit of a trend to complete unfinished sketches by deceased composers,particularly Elgar. Are there any works left unfinished by Holst that could be completed if the will was there and the right man or woman to do it? For example,I understand Holst left sketches for a Second Choral Symphony,but only a few sketches/fragments remain.
And finally, what about 'Hecuba's Lament'?

[TerraEpon]

Well in the US, the band suites are played a LOT in high schools and college. Both my high school and first college played the second one, and just last concert we played the first one in the one I'm in now.
Those, plus St. Paul's Suite also get quite frequent radio play.

[eschiss1]

Kenric Taylor (of gustavholst.info ) might know. He does mention at least one work as being lost/missing; not sure about incomplete... (unless you count a scherzo that seems to be all that's left of a symphony, from 1933? Don't know yea or nay if anything else was written, or if written, survives, of the rest of the work.)

[alberto]

I thank Albion and any other about  the theme of actual performance.
I forgot to mention that I did listen and attend an actual  performance in concert of "Ode to death" (I suppose the merit of the choice was of the conductor Jeffrey Tate). And I missed one choral concert presenting a set of Hymns from the Rig Veda.
Jumping to U.K. I remember than, by chance, I listened while driving (in Italy) a direct broadcast from Manchester of Egdon Heath conducted by Y.P. Tortelier.

[TerraEpon]

Let's see, unfinished Holst. I have listed...
Opera - Four Sketches - For unidentified stage works
Opera - The Magic Mirror - Sketches for Scene I
Opera - Opera As She is Wrote - Fragments
Incidental Music - Nabou - Aka Kings in Babylon; Sketches
Incidental Music - The Song of Solomon - Incomplete fragments and sketches
Symphony - (Fragments of a Symphony) - Fragments and sketches; Scherzo finished as Scherzo, H 192
Orchestra (Brass and Strings) - Wedding March - Incomplete; From Finale of Act ii of an unknown stage work
Orchestra - Two Pieces - Incomplete sketches
String Quartet - Allegro con Brio - Incomplete fragment
String Quartet - Scherzando - Incomplete fragment
Chamber - Allegro - Incomplete fragment
Piano - Tender Bars - Fragment
Choral (with orch.) - Horatius - Incomplete
Choral (with orch.) - Second Choral Symphony - Fragments
Choral (with orch.) - Christ Hath a Garden - Fragments
Choral (Male with orch.) - Sailors' Chorus - Incomplete
Choral (with organ) - The Listening Angels - Part Missing
Voice and Orchestra - Herald and Tom - Incomplete
Voice and Orchestra - Song of the Valkyrs - Part Missing
Song - Glory of The West - Sketch
Folksong Arrangement - Four Folksongs - Sketches



Enough for you?

[albion]

Plenty, thank you! Perhaps the greatest 'loss' in this list is the projected symphony of which Holst only lived to complete the scherzo, although it might have been fun to experience Opera as She is Wrote, outlined in Michael Short's 1990 biography -

described as being in 'six acts and five languages (including tonic sol-fa)'. The work was rehearsed during the air raids, and performed at Morley College on 9 March 1918. The first five acts consisted of an English ballad opera by 'Balface', an Italianate offering entitled Il Inspettore by 'Verdizetti', a Wagnerian concoction involving the heroine Scriemhild, impressionism in the style of 'Depussy', featuring 'Paliasse', and a Finale by 'Horriddinsky-Kantakoff'; the whole accompanied by 'a vast orchestra', with 'five hidden choirs of mermaids, and a chorus of Italian brigands disguised as fir trees and food inspectors'. The sixth and final act, 'before which the mind reels and staggers', was to portray the Opera of the Future ...

Each act had its own remarkable characteristics, but several items stood out, including an Early Victorian version of The Keel Row - 'adagio con molto espressione con molto coloratura con molto modulations', according to Holst. The Italian scene included 'banditti, condottieri, carabinieri [...] and rose to a climax with 'three soloists singing tonic solfa and the brigands shouting "Away away she shall be mine" for fifteen minutes'. For the Depussy scene, Dulcie Nutting 'repeatedly assured us how unhappy she felt sitting, as she did, like Maeterlinck's heroine in the tower, on the unstable equilibrium of various superposed chairs and tables', while Holst instructed the orchestra to play whole-tone scales. As Adrian Boult remarked, it sounded just like Debussy. For the Wagnerian scene, lest there be any misunderstanding, the Morley College Magazine published a full explanation:

"Hear the composer's own words: 'The music is built out of an indefinite number of motives, light and dark. There is one for every mood of every character; thus there is Scriemhild sleepy, Scriemhild very sleepy, Scriemhild just on the point of going to sleep, Scriemhild asleep ..." 

[Mark Thomas]

  How wonderful!

[Delicious Manager]

While I admit that the Hymn of Jesus and the Choral Symphony (No 1) are great works, his masterpiece to my ears is definitely Egdon Heath. I think  Holst also considered it the best of himself.

[albion]

Tony Palmer's new film about Holst is due to be aired on BBC 4 on Good Friday, with a DVD release scheduled for 25th April -


if it's as good as his films on Walton (At the Haunted End of Day), Britten (A Time There Was) and Malcolm Arnold (Toward the Unknown Region) it should be well worth tuning in for. 

[sdtom]

http://sdtom.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/symphony-in-f-major-op-8-the-cotswoldsholst/

I just finished a review of his symphony.

Thomas