Tag Archives: Gustav Holst

On Record – Roderick Williams, Rupert Marshall-Luck, BBC Concert Orchestra / John Andrews – La Belle Dame (EM Records)

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Roderick Williams (baritone) (Holst, O’Neil, Quilter & Scott), Rupert Marshall-Luck (violin, Brian), BBC Concert Orchestra / John Andrews

Brian orch. Marshall-Luck Legend B144 (c1919)
Delius Petite Suite d’Orchestre no.1 RTVI/6 (1889-90)
Holst Ornulf’s Drapa H34 (1898, rev. 1900)
Mackenzie Colomba Op.28 – Prelude (1883)
O’Neill La Belle Dame sans Merci Op.31 (1908)
Quilter orch. anonymous The Faithless Shepherdess Op.12/4 (1908)
Scott The Ballad of Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Op.8 (1900)

EM Records EMRCD085 [61’21’’] English texts included
Producer Neil Varley Engineers Andrew Rushton, Robbie Hayward
Recorded 5-7 January 2023 at Battersea Arts Centre, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

EM Records continues its enterprising schedule with this collection of mainly vocal settings from the early twentieth century – heard alongside early orchestral pieces by Mackenzie and Delius, plus a recent orchestration of what is Havergal Brian’s only surviving chamber work.

What’s the music like?

This album’s title is also that of the 1819 poem by John Keats, its tale of ecstasy recollected in despair tangibly conveyed by Norman O’Neill in a setting which surely ranks among his finest concert works before music for theatre productions became his focus. Only marginally less compelling, Cyril Scott’s take on a typically over-elaborate ballad by Walter Scott has a keen sense of atmosphere – not least as rendered by Roderick Williams with an appropriate Lowland burr. Less involving emotionally, Holst’s setting of verse from an early Ibsen play is rather forced in its rhetoric – though the passages of emotional impulsiveness, allied to an acute feeling for orchestral textures, does presage those masterpieces of his maturity. Roger Quilter’s setting of a favourite Elizabethan lyric launches the collection with brusque charm.

Of the orchestral pieces, Delius’s early Première Petite Suite is here heard in full for the first time. Influences are easy to discern – Bizet in its whimsical Marche, Grieg in its winsome Berceuse, Massenet in its vivacious Scherzo then Fauré in its plaintive Duo – but never to the detriment of this music’s appeal, while the final variations on a sternly unison theme with ecclesiastical overtones will keep even seasoned Delians guessing as to its provenance. The likelihood of Alexander Mackenzie’s lyrical drama Colomba being revived is slim, but the Prelude to its first act has an evocative ardency which concludes this album in fine style.

John Andrews has the measure of these contrasting idioms and gets committed playing from the BBC Concert Orchestra. Roderick Williams is on fine form, as is Rupert Marshall-Luck in the Legend by Havergal Brian he himself has orchestrated. Ranging widely in expressive profile, while building considerable fervour during its relatively brief span prior to a calmly eloquent close, it is a stylish adaptation of the violin-and-piano original which has enjoyed increasing exposure this past decade. Marshall-Luck speculates whether Brian intended his own orchestral realization yet, given the composer had evidently written an orchestral piece with this title around 1915, it seems not impossible that the duo version is itself a reduction.

Does it all work?

Yes, in that the whole proves greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly, the works by Scott and O’Neill find these contemporaneous while otherwise very different figures at something near their best, while the Delius makes for an attractive sequence which deserves more than occasional revival. As, too, does the Brian given that comparable shorter concertante pieces by figures such as Saint-Saëns are being taken up by a younger generation of violinists. The spacious sound and extensive annotations are both up to EMR’s customary high standards.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. Hearing the Holst prompts the thought that, with the 150th and 90th anniversaries of his respective birth and death falling this year, now would be the ideal time for revival of his orchestral suite Phantastes – which has seemingly remained unheard since its 1912 premiere.

Listen & Buy

La Belle Dame is due for release on 19 April, but you can hear excerpts and look at purchase options on the EM Records website. For more information on the artists click on the names of conductor John Andrews, baritone Roderick Williams, violinist Rupert Marshall-Luck and the BBC Concert Orchestra

Published post no.2,126 – Saturday 23 March 2024

Happy New Year – the year ahead on Arcana

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by Ben Hogwood, editor

As this is our first post of the year, let me take the opportunity to wish all readers of Arcana a very Happy New Year! Thanks for taking the time to visit the site, I hope you will find much of interest.

In a musical sense, 2024 promises much – and offers a great opportunity to celebrate the music of some classical composers whose anniversaries fall this year. Keep visiting for more on Gustav Holst (above, his statue in Cheltenham), Gabriel Fauré, Darius Milhaud and Nick Drake – as well as the continuation of our Beethoven 200 series, which will pick up the composer’s work where we left off, with the opera Lenore. There will also be the usual reviews of concerts and new music, playlists and interviews. The aim is to add a post each day, so if you come back to the site on a daily basis you should find something new to read – and something new to listen to.

We aim to do what Manfred Mann’s Earth Band did to Holst – and bring some joy to our readers. Wishing you a wonderful 2024!

BBC Proms 2023 – Geneva Lewis, BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Jaime Martín – Pejačević, Grace Williams & Holst

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Prom 32 – Geneva Lewis (violin), BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Jaime Martín

Pejačević Overture in D minor Op.49 (1919) [Proms premiere]
Williams Violin Concerto (1950) [Proms premiere]
Holst The Planets Op.32 (1914-17)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Tuesday 8 August 2023

by Richard Whitehouse photos by Chris Christodoulou / BBC

Although this evening’s Prom did not quite conform to that ‘overture – concerto – symphony’ format it came quite close, with its first half bringing to the attention of a near-capacity house two representative pieces by women composers who most definitely warrant greater exposure.

The centenary of Dora Pejačević’s death has duly consolidated what was already a burgeoning reputation curtailed by her untimely demise at only 37. Written two years after her impressive Symphony, which Sakari Oramo has performed and recorded (and will revive at these concerts on August 14th) to great acclaim, the Overture is a curtain-raiser as succinct as it is eventful – ably contrasting its respectively impetuous and equable main ideas in a tensile development, then on to a coda which rounds off this immensely appealing piece with decisive affirmation.

With Jaime Martín an animated podium presence, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales gave it a rousing rendition then was no less finely attuned to the very different ethos of the Violin Concerto by Grace Williams, which it premiered (as the BBC Welsh Orchestra) 73 years ago. There have been few performances since but, on the basis of that tonight, New Zealand-born Geneva Lewis is an eloquent advocate – even if the initial Liricamente arguably needed more purposeful sense of direction for its pensive and often searching inwardness not to risk inertia.

Not that Lewis’ unforced manner or tonal elegance were other than appropriate in this music, as was demonstrated even more directly in the central Andante with its impressionist eddying of melodic phrases and fastidious timbral shading. Following without pause, the final Allegro brought the work’s only fast music in which Lewis’s deftness and articulation gained through her assured coordination with BBCNOW. The cadenza was incisively despatched, while the ensuing coda brought the work to a close the more satisfying for its teasing unexpectedness.

There cannot have been many Proms season this past half-century when Holst’s The Planets has not been played, and it would be good to have welcomed this account more consistently. As it was, the performance took time to recover from a Mars whose stolid tread and lack of textural clarity made for a less than gripping traversal. Venus was better, for all that Martín’s fluctuations of pulse undercut its essential raptness, and though Mercury started off with the requisite humour, some effortful playing in its latter stages left the music feeling earthbound.

This was less of an issue in Jupiter, whose outer sections had all the right verve and energy, even if the trio’s indelible tune verged on the blousy. Pacing its stark opening bars effectively, Martín rather rushed the baleful climax of Saturn, though the radiance of what followed was nothing if not eloquent and bought the best out of BBCNOW. Uranus was almost as fine in this respect, and if the central processional sounded affable rather than sardonic, the sudden emptiness of its closing stages prepared well enough for the otherworldliness of Neptune.

If Martín might have obtained even more hushed and inward playing in this final movement, a sensuous contribution from the London Symphony Chorus enhanced the music-making. An enjoyable reading, albeit one where the whole was less than the sum of its individual planets.

For more on the 2023 BBC Proms, visit the festival’s website at the BBC. You can also click on the link to listen to Dora Pejačević’s Cello Sonata, performed by Laura van der Heijden and Jâms Coleman as part of their Proms at Dewsbury concert on 6 August.

Meanwhile click on the names for more information on artists Geneva Lewis, Jaime Martín and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales – and for information on the composers Dora Pejačević, Grace Williams and Holst

When time slows down – Holst’s ‘Betelgeuse’

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by Ben Hogwood Picture courtesy ALMA – ESO/NAOJ/NRAO, E/O’Gorman/P.Kervella

A report on the Guardian website today asks why the great red giant star Betelgeuse is glowing so brightly and behaving so strangely. It is a fascinating read, and its remarkable conclusion is a reminder that the light we see from the star is actually 600 years old.

It brought to mind a setting by Gustav Holst of a great poem about the star by Humbert Wolfe. This is a highly unusual song, proceeding such a slow speed that the age of the star is never in doubt. Here it is, sung by tenor Philip Langridge with pianist Steuart Bedford:

In concert – Alexandre Kantorow, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no.2 & Holst The Planets

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Alexandre Kantorow (piano), CBSO Youth Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no.2 in G major Op. 44 (1879-80)
Holst The Planets Op. 32 (1914-17)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 2 February 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

He may not take up his role as Chief Conductor for a couple of months, but Kazuki Yamada already has acute rapport with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, as was evident tonight in this unlikely though effective coupling of major works by Tchaikovsky and Holst.

While it has never aspired to the popularity of its predecessor, Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto lacks none of the melodic appeal or emotional heft synonymous with this composer. Growing conviction that piano and orchestra were best heard separately rather than together can give the first movement a rather stop-start trajectory, but with Alexandre Kantorow (below) alive to its bravura and poetic facets there was never a sense of disjointedness in a first movement – emphasis on whose ‘brillante’ and ‘vivace’ markings avoided any risk of portentousness.

Although those aspects of the edition by Alexander Ziloti that simplify the solo writing have now been consigned to history, truncation of the Andante into an intermezzo akin to that of the First Concerto remains common. To do so, however, misses out on the expansiveness of this movement – notably its eventful trialogue between piano, violin and cello as dominates the latter stages, and which here saw a sustained interaction between Kantorow and the CBSO section leaders (Eugene Tzikindelean and an as yet unidentified cellist. Yamada directed with an unobtrusive rightness, then gave the soloist his head in a finale that makes up for its relative brevity with scintillating wit and agility – not least in the coda when, having resisted any temptation for a grand apotheosis, Tchaikovsky allows soloist and orchestra an effervescent race to the close.

Tchaikovsky was never an influence on Holst, and the conventional scoring of the former’s piece is worlds away from that of The Planets with its extended range of ingenious timbres and textures. Finding the right martial pulse at the outset of Mars, Yamada built this first piece to a pulverizing climax – after which, the enfolding raptness of Venus was the more tangible in its serenity and poise. The deftness and insouciance of Mercury was no less to the fore, and the only reservations came in a Jupiter whose bracing outer sections verged  on the dogged; with a central section whose indelible melody took on a ceremonial turgidity which has nothing to do with this music as Holst conceived it. Happily, the remaining three pieces, which all too often seem anticlimactic, emerged as highlights of this performance.

Undeniably the emotional focal-point, Saturn unfolded from initial remoteness to a climax whose sense of crisis was palpably evident, before withdrawing into a radiant evanescence. Contrast with the sardonic humour of Uranus was pronounced – Yamada making the most of its flights of fancy, then lurchingly triumphant parade, before the heart-stopping dissolve near its close. Neptune capped proceedings superbly – its strangeness and insubstantiality allied to searching introspection which afforded cohesion to this venture into the unknown.

Placed high to the left of the auditorium, the CBSO Youth Chorus added its ethereal tones. The final fadeout began almost too remotely to be sustained yet, as this repeating vocalise moved beyond earshot, there was no doubt as to the totality of what had been experienced.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist names for more on Kazuki Yamada and Alexandre Kantorow – and for more on Gustav Holst, head to The Holst Society