EMI Classics take us on another generous romp through their 1970s
back catalogue. To the accompaniment of a completely unobtrusive
analogue 'hush' we encounter two rare operas and two ambitious
choral works by Holst.
Speaking of the operas I am surprised that EMI never got around
to recording his fairytale satire
The Perfect Fool nor
the early and allegedly ‘Wagnerian-bawling’ Sanskrit
grand opera
Sita. We ‘know’
The Perfect
Fool from the much recorded ballet music but there's much
more to it than that. Now that his friend Vaughan Williams has
had Chandos record the equally satirical and delightful
Poisoned
Kiss it is well past time for a studio recording
of
The Fool. As for
Sita,
Chandos have
done his perhaps similarly-styled
Cloud Messenger cantata.
The magical
Rig Veda hymns have been recorded for years
- try the Imogen Holst version on Decca-Argo and the Willcocks
on Unicorn-Kanchana. No doubt the creation of fully integrated
sets of performing materials for
Sita would be a great
expense of time and funding. Yet I have every expectation that
the listening public would flock to the standard once a recording
was put on sale.
Speaking of the Holst Indian connection brings us to exoticism
of
The Hymn of Jesus which for me links to later works
such as Szymanowski's
Song of the Night and
Stabat
Mater. EMI, in making this recording, were setting themselves
in competition with the still superb-sounding Boult 1960s Decca
which can be heard in honest FFRR magnificence on the
Decca
Holst set. The EMI sound has great impact and good stereo
spread in a work that moves in angelic antiphonal delights. The
range from organ profundity to the soft silver of the female
voices is wonderful. You can sample this in the
Give ye heed
unto my dancing finale (tr. 5). Good to see Richard Hickox's
name mentioned as director of the St Paul's Choristers. This
piece is vintage Holst with many hallmarks in ebullient and sensitive
evidence. Those final billowing lighter-than-air
Amens
are magical. In fact the usually-Liverpool-based Groves might
well here have had one of his most successful sessions. The spun
silver and gold filaments that twine and mesmerise remind us
what a superb composer Holst was. This is music of mysticism
and a striding ecstasy. It makes a generous companion to
A
Choral Symphony.
The 1925
Choral Symphony to words by Keats has been a
personal favourite since a friend bought the LP when it was first
issued. It's a piece I have great affection for and while I have
often been nonplussed by the stark
Choral
Fantasia the lovingly couched word settings move me still.
This Boult recording - its premiere - the second came in 1993
with Davan-Wetton in Guildford -
Hyperion Helios CDH55104.
It's as pleasing as the Boult and yet the Abbey Road acoustic
is more transparent than Hyperion’s Henry Wood Hall. Again
the wide range of sound impresses - from the lissom soprano voice
of Felicity Palmer to the rampant Bacchus's crew. The second
movement is a setting of the sustained, stilling and distant
emotional cool of
Ode on a Grecian Urn - part
Venus-part
Neptune.
The music at 4:10 is incredibly moving and one wonders what emotional
reactions it must have touched off among the War-bereaved audiences
of the 1920s. The quicksilver feyness listeners will know from
Mercury is
engaged by the full-throttle delicate
Scherzo - a
tour
de force in tongue-twisting acceleration. The grand finale
has golden majesty, poetry and inspired musical invention. The
music blazes with exultation intermittently over a typically
trudging Holstian ostinato. It’s the sort of ostinato we
also hear in his very moving Whitman setting
Dirge for Two
Veterans. One of the most beautiful moments in all music
comes with the words from 13:34 onwards - “Underneath large
bluebells tented where the daises are rose-scented.” It
gives me goose-pimples every time I hear it. Some of the very
same listeners of the 1920s may well have mapped their own experiences
and need for consolation into the words in the finale and those
valedictory and tellingly tolled-out words: “Bards of passion
and of mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth, Ye have souls
in Heaven too, Double lived in regions new.”
A change of gear comes with CD 2.
The Wandering Scholar shows
Holst's vitality borne along in kinship with his friend RVW's
Sir
John in Love. The
lingua franca is pretty much identical.
The plot is based on Helen Waddell's Chaucerian medieval tales.
The pretty tame bawdiness would hardly raise an eyebrow now.
The vocal acting here is vividly done and the enunciation very
clearly done without preciousness. I liked the klaxon masculinity
of the start of
Someone is coming. Tear as The Scholar
is in pretty good voice despite the constriction at the strained
top of his range. Tracked in eleven segments this is ideal for
pleasure and study.
At the Boar's Head is a problematic one-acter - more of
a lyric interlude than a grand drama. It sits comfortably alongside
RVW's
Sir John in Love (
EMI;
Chandos)
but while
Sir John is a satisfying full evening the Holst
is, at about the same duration as the
Choral Symphony,
half
an evening ... if that. Its delights are well shaped and marshalled
in this sole recording. While making a pleasing companion to
RVW's
Sir John it is lower key even in the majestic bombast
of
How Now and
Harry is Valiant (trs. 20-21). There
is at least one moment of Puccinian heat towards the end of the
work - though I doubt Holst would have accepted that description.
The tunes, we are told, are in large part from Playford's
English
Dancing Master of 1651 yet Holst assimilates them so completely
that their adventitious origin does not intrude.
Sadly, for four works that entail singing, there are no texts
provided though you may be able to find some of the words on
the internet. The notes are by Imogen Holst, Colin Matthews and
the composer. If you still and irrationally have not been able
to bear parting with the LPs you will be able to refer to the
little booklets of words.
Two eccentric operas not without modest enchantment and two blazing
choral masterworks.
Rob Barnett
Tracklisting
Hymn of Jesus
Prelude: Vexilla Regis proderunt
Glory to thee, Father!
Fain would I be saved
Divine Grace is dancing
Give ye heed unto my dancing
A Choral Symphony
(1985 Digital Remaster):
Prelude (Invocation to Pan)
I. Song and Bacchanale
II. Ode to a Grecian Urn
III. Scherzo (Fancy - Folly's Song)
IV. Finale
Wandering Scholar
When boughs are green in April (Louis)
Ho there, old dog (Louis)
The most beautiful piece (Alison)
The time, then, was well chosen (Philippe)
Someone is coming! (Alison)
Before that I was twenty (Pierre)
So learnèd a clerk (Alison)
Heigho, a pretty knave! (Alison)
He'll lie all day in the sun (Louis)
As I was walking (Pierre)
Monster! Villain! (Louis)
At the Boar’s Head
Of all the birds (Bardolph)
Are you not a coward? (Falstaff)
I am a rogue (Falstaff)
We two saw you four (Prince)
I know you all (Prince)
Do thou stand (Prince)
I' faith, sweetheart (Hostess)
Devouring Time (Prince)
How now! What news? (Prince)
Harry is valiant (Falstaff)
For God's sake (Doll)
Now comes in the sweetest morsel (Falstaff)
Choristers of St Paul's
Cathedral/Richard Hickox 
