Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Fide et Literis
Paulina Voices/Heidi Pegler
Em Marshall-Luck (Reciter)
BBC Concert Orchestra/Leigh O’Hara
rec. 2023, St Paul’s Girls’ School, London
Texts included
Reviewed as a download
EM Records EMRCD090 [70]
This is an intriguing new recording of Holst’s music, featuring two well-known and much-recorded music, as well as one first professional recording and three world premiere recordings. It features the Paulina Voices, which is the top auditioned choir at St. Paul’s Girls’ School, where Holst taught, and Em Marshall-Luck as the narrator.
St. Paul’s Suite has been recorded many times; without looking too hard I was able to find more than a dozen other CD versions. It is, of course, a charming four-movement piece, the first of which is Jig,which is introduced in contrasting 6/8 and 9/8 time. A contrasting theme then interacts with the original jig; the track has a clear, lively sound quality, dance-like feeling. It is very well played and is twenty seconds longer than the 1984 City of London Sinfonia/Richard Hickox performance. I personally found this slower pace – a comparative term bearing in mind that this is a jig – very much to my liking. Ostinato is next – the term means a short melody that is constantly repeated – initially played by the second violins. The main theme is introduced by the solo violins, whilst the second violins continue alternating the ostinato. The third movement Intermezzo was originally marked “dance”, the solo violin plays the main theme against a series of pizzicato chords. The solo viola joins in and the piece ends with a quartet of soloists. Again, it’s a slower pace than other recordings I have heard i.e. 4.20 versus 4.09 on the 1989 English Symphony Orchestra/William Boughton recording. The Finale was arranged from Fantasia on the Dargasson from Holst’s Second Suite in F. The folk song Dargasson is heard then Greensleeves is played on the cellos; they are both then played together until the end. I have recently reviewed the Second Suite in F on Holst at 150 – A Brass Celebration. The sound quality on all of the movements is excellent and I liked the slower pace at which they were played.
The second well known piece, Brook Green Suite, written for junior orchestra, is named after the green on which St. Paul’s Girls’ School is situated. Holst wrote the suite while in hospital in the year before he died. The intention was to create a piece easy enough to play for younger members of the orchestra that is not simply a watered-down version aimed at younger players or simple orchestrations of keyboard pieces. For the Prelude the composer used music resembling English folk melody; it has a lovely gentle harmony that moves along effortlessly. The second movement, the Air, is graceful yet wistful with the feeling of a country dance; the structure is reminiscent of the counterpoint of Holst’s lyric movement in 1933, which has full enharmonic relations but remains austere. The recording on this CD is a minute longer than the 2007 English Sinfonia/Howard Griffiths recording i.e. 3:08 vs. 2:05. The Griffiths recording is serene but this one feels more graceful. The final movement, the Dance, was originally named jig and it’s based on a melody heard by Holst while in Sicily, where he enjoyed visiting the many back street marionette shows where lively music was played; he used one of these tunes as the basis for this movement. Brook Green Suite originally contained a fourth movement, a Gavotte, which was removed after the first informal performance in 1934, the last concert Holst attended.
Which leads onto the first world premiere on this disc, Gavotte; it’s a bright, airy but short piece, very much in Holst style – a charming composition. The other three premieres all involve the Chamber Choir Paulina Voices. The first is Seven Choruses from the Alcestis of Euripides; Alcestis is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides (c. 480 – c. 406 BC) it was first produced at the City Dionysia festival in 438 BC. The piece involves spoken text, in this case by Em Marshall-Luck. It consists of seven movements and is just over 19 minutes long. All in all, it’s a lovely piece; the diction of the choir is exemplary so that every word sung can be heard. The use of spoken word along with a classical work is not, of course, unique to Holst; other notable examples would be Vaughan Williams’ Oxford Elegy or Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale. The inclusion of spoken text in my mind does help to bring a different dimension to a piece. Seven Choruses from the Alcestis of Euripides is no exception, as Marshall-Luck’s narration adds some tension and contrast to the piece whilst the choir remains melodic and calm.
The next piece is Playground Song; the excellent notes included in the CD brochure tell us, “In 1911, the High Mistress invited the girls to submit verses for a playground song. As to choosing the winner, she was judge and jury and, in fact, told the Paulinas that “there was a moral fault in some songs that doomed them to the waste-paper basket”. The brochure includes the text of all the sung pieces as well as the 1911 text for this piece which is different from that sung on the CD. It’s a very short piece in which the pupils sing of their delight at being students of St. Paul’s.
The Vision of Dame Christian, familiarly known as The Masque, is a work deeply rooted in the early history of St Paul’s Girls’ School. Miss Frances Gray, the first headmistress, who wrote the libretto, believed that The Masque of 1909 was a way to enhance the emerging character of her new school. The booklet notes, “The original production was, declared by The Times (23rd July 1909) “remarkably graceful and suitable”, while a visitor from The Kensington News in the same month was astonished by “the beauty of the production”. The Prelude is the delightful and atmospheric instrumental opening movement, followed by Chorus which begins with an extended orchestral introduction; the lyrics then muse on mysteries of life and the choir gives it a dreamlike feeling. A short Hymn follows. The next movement Intermezzo, subtitled The Spirit of Poetry Speaks, once again involves spoken word with strings playing gently and wistfully in the background; the choir do not sing in this movement. Choral Dance mixes voices with Holst music to produce a lovely upbeat, yet haunting, piece. The Finale/Last Chorus is hymn-like for the first half but then we hear a gentle orchestral melody before the choir returns with a more subdued finale.
All in all, this is a charming recording which has great sound quality and displays the professionalism of all the musicians involved.
Ken Talbot
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Contents
St. Paul’s Suite (1912)
Brook Green Suite (1933)
Gavotte (1933) *
Seven Choruses from the Alcestis of Euripides (1920) *
Playground Song (1911) *
The Vision of Dame Christian (1909) **
* World premiere recording
** First professional recording
