Imogen Holst (1907-1984)
Discovering Imogen
Persephone (1929)
Variations on ‘Loth to Depart’ (1962)
What Man is He? (ca.1940)
Allegro Assai (1927)
On Westhall Hill (1935)
Suite for String Orchestra (1943)
Festival Anthem (1946)
BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra/Alice Farnham
rec. 2024, BBC Maida Vale Studio 1, London
Texts included
NMC D280 [75]
The NMC label is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. The label has done tremendous work in making and issuing recordings of music by living British composers; I understand that the catalogue now extends to more than 300 albums. On the face of it, you might wonder why, as part of their celebrations, NMC should release a CD devoted to music by a composer who died forty years ago. However, the explanation lies in the booklet where there’s a warm tribute to Imogen Holst by composer Colin Matthews who established the NMC label. He writes that “without Imogen…having the foresight to set up the Holst Foundation [in 1981] …it is very unlikely that NMC would exist at all. The Foundation was always intended to support the work of living composers, and we had discussed in detail the possibility of setting up a record label which would do exactly that.” Though Matthews doesn’t mention this specifically, I read on the website of the Holst Foundation, which derived its income from royalties from the music of Gustav Holst until copyright expired, that the Foundation made an annual grant to NMC for nearly 30 years.
So, in the year when the musical world is marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gustav Holst – something which, with one or two honourable exceptions (mainly Albion Records and SOMM Recordings) seems to have largely passed the record industry by – I think it’s very fitting indeed that NMC should celebrate the music of his daughter.
Imogen Holst devoted most of her career to promoting and enabling the music of others. Obviously, she did as much as she could to foster interest in her father’s music. She is principally remembered as the assistant to Benjamin Britten (1951-64) but she also held the important post of Director of Music at Dartington between 1942 and 1951. As the biographical note in the booklet reminds us, she was a notable student at the Royal College of Music, where her teachers included George Dyson, Gordon Jacob (both of them for composition) and Vaughan Wiliams. I have to confess that I had not encountered her music to any significant degree until 2012 when I heard a fine disc of Imogen’s choral music by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (review). Since then, I’ve heard a few individual pieces by her but until now I’ve lacked another opportunity to experience her music on a significant scale. (NMC issued a disc of her string chamber music in 2017 (NMCD236) but I’ve not heard that.)
Although she composed throughout her adult life, Imogen Holst seems to have been extraordinarily reticent, for whatever reason, about promoting her own music. Indeed, all but one of the pieces on this programme had never been performed professionally prior to these recording sessions. The exception was the Suite for String Orchestra and, significantly, that was performed at a London concert facilitated by friends, as we shall see. As an aside, while I was preparing this review, I learned on social media that the manuscript of a 1935 Violin Concerto has recently come to light in the Britten Pears archive. The concerto is due to receive its first public performance on 24 November in London; the soloist will be Midori Komachi. One wonders what other significant works by Imogen Holst remain to be discovered.
The earliest piece in this collection is the Allegro Assai for string orchestra. Christopher Tinker relates in his very valuable notes that it appears this student piece was the first movement of a projected Suite in F for Strings; it seems that the work never progressed beyond the first movement. The music seems to be very indebted to folk music (in 1932 Imogen became for a while a full-time staff member at the English Folk Dance Society). The piece is accomplished but not especially memorable.
Another student piece is Persephone. This is on a much more substantial scale; here it plays for 13:24. I’m not quite clear whether the piece was written as an overture (as per the notes) or, as Colin Matthews states, as a symphonic poem; it matters not. Persephone is scored for full orchestra and Christopher Tinker tells us that Malcolm Sargent conducted it in rehearsal at the Royal College of Music; that was its only performance until this recording. At the start you might be forgiven for thinking you are listening to the ‘Lever du jour’ section from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, rippling flute figurations and all. The music does indeed bear the influences of other composers but it’s still an assured and accomplished composition and I much admire the confidence of the scoring, not least the writing for harp. In the opening Daphnis-influenced few minutes the textures are gorgeous and the melodic lines really catch the ear. Imogen Holst displays a fine, imaginative ear for orchestral colours. At around 7:00 the double basses begin a dark, mysterious fugal passage in which the other string voices gradually become involved. As other instruments join the strings the music assumes the character of a slow processional until the return of the work’s opening material (10:00) This whole episode strikes me as bearing a debt to her father’s music but even so I think there’s sufficient individuality in the music. After the return of the Daphnis-like music, the piece builds to a big, confident conclusion scored for full orchestra. Based on the later music on this CD, I don’t think Persephone is typical of Imogen Holst’s mature output. However, Colin Mattews uses the word “remarkable” to describe it and I wouldn’t dissent. I liked it and felt that it’s an impressive opener to this programme.
Chronologically, the next piece is On Westhall Hill. This, I learned from the notes, takes its name from the home of Captain and Mrs Kettlewell in the very nice small town of Burford, Oxfordshire. Apparently, Mrs Kettlewell was the first secretary of the English Folk Dance Society, so I imagine Imogen got to know her and her husband through her own work at the Society. This short piece for small orchestra is based on two unidentified folk songs. I presume that the first of these is the tune played by the clarinet near the start of the work and that the second is the perky melody first heard on the flute a little later on. On Westhall Hill is a straightforward but very pleasing work. There is no record of any performance of the piece.
That’s also the case with What Man is He? for chorus and orchestra. This is a setting of words from the Book of Wisdom. The stately opening with descending scales in the bass line inevitably put me in mind of Holst père but in the section beginning with the words ‘For the corruptible body presseth down the soul’ Imogen asserts her individuality through interesting (and unexpected) harmonies. Towards the end (‘But the things that are in heav’n’) the opening material is reprised but this time the tone is much more positive; even so, the blazing music to which the final line is set comes almost as a surprise.
Christopher Tinker relates that in 1942 some extraordinarily generous friends offered to organise and fund a London concert of Imogen Holst’s music. They also secured the support of Vaughan Williams for the venture. The Suite for String Orchestra was one of three works that Imogen composed for the occasion and she conducted the Jacques String Orchestra in the premiere at the Wigmore Hall in 1943. The Suite is in four movements. In the first, which is in 5/4 time, I had the impression that the harmonies are continually moving forward – and often in unexpected directions. The short second movement is a fugue, full of robust energy. I like the unexpected touch at the very end: a subdued string chord incorporating harmonics, followed by a solitary pizzicato note. The Intermezzo which follows is rightly assessed by Christopher Tinker as “very much the heart of this work”. The music is gentle yet intense; the harmonic language underscores the introspective nature of what we are hearing. By omitting the double basses completely, Imogen lightens the orchestral textures. The Suite ends with a jig but even here, the composer is wont to surprise us – in a good way – with some unexpected harmonies.
The Festival Anthem is a setting of Psalm 104, as rendered in the Book of Common Prayer. This was composed for SATB choir accompanied by organ or piano. Here it’s given in an arrangement for string orchestra by Colin Matthews. The piece is an interesting one, not least because Imogen Holst responded very well to the imagery of the words and thereby produced a piece that is full of contrasts. The Anthem plays for 14:59 and packs a lot into its duration.
Sixteen years separate the Festival Anthem from the remaining piece, Variations on ‘Loth to Depart’, which was composed in 1962. It was composed for a concert, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, which was presented at the RCM to mark the retirement of Mary Ibberson as Director of the Rural Music Schools Association. Might we infer from the title that Mary Ibberson stepped back with reluctance? The piece takes the form of a Theme and Five Variations for string quartet and double string orchestra. Thus, in Christopher Tinker’s words, it “contains three elements of Imogen Holst’s output: professional [the quartet], amateur [the orchestra which has less demanding music to play] and the educational”. The theme is a sixteenth century tune as harmonised by Giles Farnaby. The first variation is, in the composer’s words, ‘lively and energetic’. The second is a lament founded on the notes A, D and E (which spell out the German word for ‘farewell’); here the quartet’s material is especially searching in nature. The third variation is a Pastorale; I detect a definite air of melancholy. The fourth variation is a Moto perpetuo in which the quartet is very much to the fore. The fifth and final variation is the longest ; in it the possibilities offered by the Theme are explored in a number of ways. It seems to me that this set of variations is very well laid out for strings, not least in terms of the way in which the varying levels of abilities among the assembled forces are used very intelligently. I liked the piece a lot.
This is an ear-opening disc. The music has been shrewdly chosen to give us an overview of Imogen Holst’s development as a composer, taking us from her student days to the 1960s. On this evidence – and that of the aforementioned Clare College disc of choral music – she was far too reticent about her music. Her compositional light was hidden under a bushel for much too long and it’s very good that NMC have marked the fortieth anniversary of her death with this handsome tribute.
The performances are excellent, as is the recorded sound. In this review I have drawn significantly on Christopher Tinker’s invaluable notes, which are indispensable to appreciating these pieces.
John Quinn
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