Non-Planets Holst

[MDL]

Sorry about Walton intrusion but here goes, I have recordings by
Boult
Harty
Sargent
Previn x 2
Mackerras
Handley x 2
Walton x 3
Haitink
Thomson
Rattle
Leaper
Karajan
Litton
Slatkin
Colin Davis
Ashkenazy

That is 20 and there may be others I have forgotten about (Daniel on Naxos, Marriner, Fremaux - that makes 23  )

My favourites: Walton with the New Zealand SO recorded in 1964 is very good as is the old Boult and Sargent and even older Harty (1930s). I like Ashkenazy, Haitink, Fremaux and Thomson - all excellent. I much prefer Previn's later 'Homeric' (according to Rob Barnett) version with the RPO than the much-praised LSO version.

Karajan recorded Walton's First?! What band/label? Not that I'm going to rush out to buy it; I'm just a bit surprised.

[Guido]

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Apr06/Walton1_4574332.htm

Yick - look at his requirements for conducting the Philharmonia.

[Benji]

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Apr06/Walton1_4574332.htm

Yick - look at his requirements for conducting the Philharmonia.

A slightly late April fool's joke methinks... 

(p.s. As someone who prides himself on good photoshopping, I must say that made-up cover is sloppy and amateur)

[Benji]

But Karajan did record Walton's 1st ...I think this is the actual disc.

[Guido]

Yes I found that one too... I assumed that this was an excerpt off it. Obviously it was joke now that I think about it! I'm gulliable as hell.

[vandermolen]

Yes, there is the Music Web April fool (Boulez conducting Vaughan Williams is another one) but there is a real Karajan version as shown above. The performance is excellent in my view - and I am no fan of Karajan (good rhyme  ) except his Honegger Symphony No 3, which is IMHO the best version by far.

[Dundonnell]

Can I just say something?

GUSTAV HOLST 

[Benji]

Can I just say something?

GUSTAV HOLST 

I wonder what recording of Walton's 1st Holst would have liked. Discuss.

[Pierre]

Did anyone here go to the performance of Holst's Choral Symphony at the BBC Proms last night? Here's a link (alas, only audible for UK residents AFAIK):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lslr6/BBC_Proms_2009_Part_1

[Tapkaara]

Holst is one of my favorite composers.

I love the Invocation for Cello and Orchestra. Egdon Heath has almost a Sibelian austerity to it that I find suits my tastes.

His tone poem Indra is also pretty good stuff. It's in a lighter, more "cinematic" vein, with similarities to the the out-going nature of the Planets, which is indeed one of my favorite orchestral works.

[SonicMan46]

Well, my most recent Holst addition to my collection is the one below of his daughter, Imogen - Fanfare review quoted below (probably illegally -  ) - nice recording! 

Imogen Holst's life (1907–1984) matched talent and intelligence to sacrifice. A beautiful girl and a promising pianist, she's best know for her apparently selfless devotion to two men, her father Gustav, whose work she edited and criticized objectively (maybe too stringently at times), and Benjamin Britten. I first learned the rudiments of music from her excellent book, The ABC of Music. She was a first-class writer on many musical topics, and a challenging, inspirational teacher at all levels. She was also an outstanding conductor (hear her marvelous Lyrita CDs), when English ladies didn't often do that. Holst represents the ethos of an era and a sympathetic, penetrating, no-nonsense approach to music, which we've now lost. We've no current equivalent to her.

Perhaps most important, she was a fine composer, and here, at last, is a full disc of her own music. The works range from 1928 to 1982, and they are mostly and determinedly individual. The slight exception is the early 10-minute Phantasy Quartet, a Cobbett prize piece. It is highly attractive, but quite close to Ravel. It's still one of the better Cobbett pieces. Two years on, Holst, while influenced by her father's aesthetic, was secure in her own idiom, and the Sonata for Violin and Cello from 1930 turns the tables on any notion that she was influenced by Britten. At times, it could be one of his much later chamber works, with a dash of the pastoral. The sparse beauty of the Adagio must be unique in English music of the time, while the restrained Presto vanishes like mist. The 1944 Trio is still more individual, starting and ending with an Andante movement, enclosing a passionate Lento, and another evanescent Presto. It's an emotionally questioning, probing compositional idiom that still manages to stop at the exact moment it's said what needs saying. Textures are precise and starkly memorable. Much to learn, here, for today's school of garrulity composers, of neo-Romantic cut.

The extreme beauty of the Fall of the Leaf variations for solo cello (1962) contrasts with the drier viola and piano Duo (1968) and does not prepare you for the scale and range of the late Quintet from 1982. It still lasts only a quarter hour, and is audibly the work of the composer of the Phantasy Quartet from half a century earlier. The Quintet ends with a relatively extended and spare-textured Theme and Variations. You need to hold your breath so as not to disturb its still, harmonic progress. There's a whiff of Vaughan Williams; then it just disappears like childhood. This is deeply affecting music.

No problems with the sound, or the performances, from a talented British group. A mandatory purchase for lovers of English music. Paul Ingram

[Häuschen]

Apologies if this has been asked before, but did Holst do the wind band orchestration for the Moorside Suite or did someone else orchestrate it?

[listener]

agreed: The Hymn of Jesus is one of the great 20th century choral works  (Tovey has an excellent analysis of it)

Holst's music for wind has been mentioned in passing.   The Two Suites have some great recordings and used to be repertoire staples when schools had music departments.    Telarc recorded them as one of their first digital releases. On LP they were a major test for tracking, on CD they are a terrific demo of woofer power.   
The CD seems to be in print still

[Christo]

Can I just say something?

GUSTAV HOLST 

What about: Gustav VON Holst ? 

[Häuschen]

agreed: The Hymn of Jesus is one of the great 20th century choral works  (Tovey has an excellent analysis of it)

Holst's music for wind has been mentioned in passing.   The Two Suites have some great recordings and used to be repertoire staples when schools had music departments.    Telarc recorded them as one of their first digital releases. On LP they were a major test for tracking, on CD they are a terrific demo of woofer power.   
The CD seems to be in print still

I have that LP actually, which still sounds fantastic.  Well, with a little googling I turned up "In 1927 Holst was commissioned to write a competition piece for the BBC and the National Brass Band Festival Committee. The result was The Moorside Suite."

Guess that solves it!

I have great memories of playing the piece with my college band back in undergrad.  I was second chair trumpet, so lost out on the great solos, but the first chair guy had a silkier tone than I could muster.

[Guido]

I am always surprised when I come back to Holst - despite it all seeming so conventional and safe on the surface, there's always so much atmosphere and character, achieved with the simplest means. Quite disarming often - the essentially edwardian language paired down to its essentials, sometimes to the point of starkness, spiced with mysticism and folk song, all coloured by a gentle luminosity, a beautiful softness - such a distinctive and subtle voice.

I just adore his lyric movement  for viola and orchestra - his completed last work - there is no sign that his ability was fading at this stage and one feels that he would only have moved onto ever subtler and rarefied reimaginings of his delicate and personal compositional palette.

[Teresa]

For non-Planets Holst, no greater disc than this one:



Boult endows, in particular, the Beni Mora Suite with a power and edge no other conductor does - revealing it to be another masterpiece.

Thomas

One of my favorites as well.  All the Holst Lyrita recordings are excellent IMHO.

I just discovered this thread, however Holst is one of my composers, my favorite compositions are the Japanese Suite, Beni Mora and the two Suites for Band.

Here is my collection of his music:

HOLST, GUSTAV (1874-1934)
  Beni Mora - Oriental Suite, Op. 29, No. 1 (1910)
  Fugal Overture, Op. 40, No. 1 (1922)
  Hammersmith - Prelude and Scherzo, Op. 52 (1930)
    Boult, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  Indra, Symphonic Poem, Op. 13 (1903)
    McAslan, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  Japanese Suite, Op. 33 (1915)
    Boult, London Symphony [MP3] Lyrita 
  The Lure: Ballet music from the Opera (1921)
    Hickox, BBC National Orch. of Wales [SACD] Chandos
  A Moorside Suite (1928)
    Braithwaite, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  The Morning of the Year: Dances, Op. 45 (1927)
    McAslan, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  The Perfect Fool: Ballet, Op. 39 (1922)
    Hickox, BBC National Orch. of Wales [SACD] Chandos
  The Planets, Op. 32 (1916)
    Elder, Halle Orchestra and Choir [SACD] Hyperion
  Sita - Interlude from Act III, Op. 23 (1906)
    McAslan, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  Somerset Rhapsody, Op. 21, No. 2 (1907)
    Boult, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  Suite de Ballet In E Flat Op.10
    Braithwaite, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  Suite No. 1 in E Flat for Band, Op. 28 No. 1 (1909)
  Suite No. 2 in F for Band, Op. 28 No. 2 (1911)
    Fennell, Cleveland Symphonic Winds [SACD] Telarc 
  Symphony in F "The Cotswolds", Op. 8 (1900)
    McAslan, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  Walt Whitman Overture Op.7 (1899)
    Braithwaite, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita 
  A Winter Idyll (1897)
    McAslan, London Philharmonic [MP3] Lyrita

[Pierre]

British readers here may be interested to know that there's a Tony Palmer documentary on Holst tonight on BBC Four, 9.30. Not sure how informative and accurate it will be, but might be at least provocative and interesting. Would be nice to discuss afterwards, too.

[klingsor]

Thanks for that reminder, I look forward to seeing the documentary


Also, BBC3 has Holst as Composer of the Week starting tomorrow (25 April 2011)

Info here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010gmxb

[Pierre]

Who saw the Tony Palmer documentary? And was anyone else annoyed by how Palmer kept on using an actress who sounded almost, but not quite, like Imogen Holst for some of the voice-overs when he wanted to slip in some not quite accurate but racy information about his subject (e.g. that Holst "stayed" in a notorious street of prostitutes while taking a holiday in Algeria)? A pity, because it had some very interesting ideas, and some pretty good performances of (sadly chopped and shaped) extracts from his music.