Holst Orchestral music Naxos Collection
Rob Barnett
GUSTAV HOLST (1874-1934) orchestral music
Somerset Rhapsody (1906-7)
Beni Mora (1910)
Invocation for cello and Orchestra (1911)
Fugal Overture (1922)
Egdon Heath 1927)
Hammersmith (version for wind band) (1930)
Timothy Hugh (cello), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, David Lloyd Jones
Naxos 8.553696
69:02
Naxos continue to choose their orchestras and conductors well. The
RSNO have done a great deal for Scotland’s and Glasgow’s
international reputation. I hope this is recognised. Their name and
artistry graces CDs the world over with tens of discs produced by
Chandos and the spiritedly enterprising Neeme Järvi. Now the RSNO are
working for Varese-Sarabande in re-recording film scores (their
Mcneely conducted Herrmann/Psycho disc is a prize-winner if ever I
heard one) and for Naxos (their fine Bax 1 will be followed by the
complete cycle of seven symphonies!). David Lloyd Jones is a gifted
conductor and as idiotically neglected by orchestral managements as
the music he champions here. Tim Hugh already has a fine reputation
which I am sure will be further enhanced when his recording of the
Moeran Cello Concerto is issued. This will be part of the Naxos
commitment to a cycle of Moeran’s major orchestral works.
This Holst collection CD is well filled though there would have been
room for the orchestral Scherzo if someone had thought about it. The
disc breaks new ground by providing a superbargain price collection
of Holst’s orchestral music without The Planets!
Holst was a great innovator and still comparatively little of his
output is known. The first three works are early. Holst the pioneer
produces a delightful pastoral rhapsody in the Somerset Rhapsody. It
is fatal to start cataloguing folksongs: kills the piece stone dead.
Just sit back and enjoy one of the earliest impressionistic essays in
British countryside music completed seven years before Butterworth
(Shropshire Lad) and Bridge (Summer). The performance is bright-eyed
though marginally not in my view with as much depth as the Boult
version on Lyrita SRCD222. Norman Del Mar’s version coupled with
works by Elgar and VW is worth hearing. I have not heard the Hickox
Chandos version. There is little enough in it and there is the price
difference and a much more generous timing in this collection than
the Boult one.
Beni Mora is an oriental suite written as a memento of a Hispanic and
Moroccan holiday with Balfour Gardiner and the two Bax brothers in
1908. This work is written off by many for its picture postcard
approach. Bax of course wrote an infinitely weaker souvenir piece
(Mediterranean). The holiday straddled the performances in 1906, 1907
and 1909 of Bantock’s Omar Khayyam and an interest in the mysterious
East was clearly in the air. Holst however benefited from actually
visiting the locale.
Ever since hearing an EP of a smashing performance of Beni Mora by
the oft-derided Sargent I have had a special affection for the work.
Its picture painting is subtle and dramatic. There is an explosive
Spanish flourish in the First Dance and a billowing impressionism
which is almost French. It recalls the more exotic works of Florent
Schmitt, Ibert (Escales) and Aubert. The Final Dance is sultry and
mysterious using a repeated figure suggesting Bedouin drums and which
uncannily recalls the Sibelius of Pohjola’s Daughter (1906) and Night
Ride and Sunrise (1909). This music is a very long way from the
Kitsch syrup of Ketèlbey.
Invocation receives here its fourth recording. Predecessors have
included Julian Lloyd Webber (twice) and Alexander Baillie. This is
another of those works which suffered the damning criticism of Imogen
Holst and which accordingly was suppressed until her death. A loving
performance which seems to invoke the night. Fugal Overture has a
delicious bounce and vigour: well projected here.
Egdon Heath is demanding listening. It evokes the Egdon Heath of
Thomas Hardy’s novel Return of the Native and slighted but enduring
human nature. The music is just two steps removed from the vast
landscapes of Allan Pettersson’s gloomy symphonies. There have not
been that many recordings of the piece. The first was by Boult in
1961 coupled with a great performance of Hymn of Jesus. Later came
Previn, Andrew Davis and Hickox. These are all estimable performances
but Boult remains supreme for me. His sense and projection of an
oppressive and inhuman landscape of the soil and of the mind makes it
the version of choice. Lloyd Jones is however wonderful and is much
better recorded though perhaps the analytical clarity marginally
undermines the mystery and the loneliness. These are very fine shadings.
Hammersmith is recorded in the original windband version rather than
Boult’s full orchestral dress - a courageous but welcome decision. A
better comparison then is the still brightly-lit Eastman Frederick
Fennell version. Here Lloyd Jones and the RSNO are to be preferred.
The mystery of London and the Thames is well portrayed and we can
hear the odd suggestion of his friend VW’s London Symphony.
The Holst portrayed here is fairly rare and even the relatively
popular Perfect Fool music has been avoided. Hats off then to Naxos,
Lloyd Jones and the RSNO for a thoughtful approach, good recording
(with plenty of depth) and insightful performances.
If you have the taste for exploring further try the full price
Lyritas SRCD209 and 223. They offer very little overlap. SRCD 222 is
a lovely sounding orchestral collection conducted by Boult and all of
these Lyrita recordings sound very good.
The Naxos however sweeps the board at this or any price. © Rob Barnett
--
Rob Barnett
Editor, British Music Society, Newsletter
British Music Society promoting neglected British Music. All
enquiries welcomed. Please visit our Web-Site at
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~snc/society.htm
Old 8H
On Sun, 24 May 1998 20:41:03 +0100, Rob Barnett <bar...@zetnet.co.uk>
wrote:
>GUSTAV HOLST (1874-1934) orchestral music
>Somerset Rhapsody (1906-7)
>Beni Mora (1910)
>Invocation for cello and Orchestra (1911)
>Fugal Overture (1922)
>Egdon Heath 1927)
>Hammersmith (version for wind band) (1930)
>Timothy Hugh (cello), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, David Lloyd Jones
>Naxos 8.553696
>69:02
>The Naxos...sweeps the board at this or any price. Š Rob Barnett
A hearty concurrence from this venue. I spent over 20 years playing
these pieces on the radio, using the old Lyrita LPs, and the Sargent
and Boult recordings: I practically started up a British music revival
in the Bay Area on the US west coast, because of all the 20th century
music I aired, such melodious, moving, and majestic works as these
Holst compositions drew the most favored responses. I know for a fact
that a number of radio listeners then took up the cudgel and began to
collect Holst, Bax, RVW, et al., which were virtually unplayed here
during the sixties and seventies save for my programs: once or twice a
year, someone might put on 'St Paul's Suite" or some of the band
pieces, but no one else seemed to be investigating Beni Mora or
Hammersmith, which were probably considered by 'radio people' to be
too dull and introspective for their jolly drive-time trivialities.
(Incidentally, regarding the Invocation, one can only wonder about
Imogen's objections, judging from the lovely Lyrita recording by
Baillie, or Webber's with Marriner: in a strange, frustrating
coincidence, my sprawling collection has gotten out of order, and I
could not lay hands on EITHER of the CDs to check the liner
annotations and see if they shed any light on the issue of Holst's
daughter's suppression. I shall keep looking; until then, can you
provide more details, Rob?)
I would like to request that Naxos stop tantalizing us: they have a
tendency to issue one or two recordings that promise to start a cycle,
and then to drop the subject or fail to return to it for years and
years. Where are the rest of the Brian symphonies? Or the Parrys?
Please, Klaus, don't hold a Bax cycle close to the vest: your new
Naxos issue of Symphony No. 1 is better than the Chandos, and worthy
of the old Lyrita LP edition. I have always refrained from complete
acceptance of the Bax canon (which seems to me inferior to his tone
poems and chamber music) but your version of Sym. No. 1 might make me
change my mind! Rave reviews from folks like Rob must be a tonic for
Naxos...I can only add my own 'huzzahs', and hope for the best.
Yours,
Old 8H