Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Beni Mora Op. 29 No. 1 (1909-10)
Choral Symphony Op.41 (1923-24)
Heather Harper (soprano)
BBC Chorus and Choral Society
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Malcolm Sargent
rec. August 1956, Kingsway Hall London (Beni Mora), 22 January 1964, Royal Festival Hall London (live broadcast)
Texts included
SOMM Recordings Ariadne 5040 [66]
Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams, life-long friends, had agreed early on to give totally honest opinions of each other’s works. After the premiere of Holst’s Choral Symphony in 1925, Vaughan Williams confessed to having “only cold admiration” for the work. He was not the only one to feel that way, perhaps because of a wretched London premiere. The Choral Symphony has never been as popular as some of Holst’s other works, and much less than The Planets.
The work did not receive a studio recording until Sir Adrian Boult’s in 1974. (MWI has duly noted Boult’s recorded performances of the Symphony: review ~ review ~ review ~ review.) Since then, there have only been two other studio recordings, in 1993 by Hilary Davan Wetton (review) and in 2013 by Sir Andrew Davis (review). To my way of thinking, the Choral Symphony needs a live performance to truly come into its own. That makes SOMM’s release of Sir Malcolm Sargent’s concert performance in 1964 very welcome, especially in Lani Spahr’s audio restoration.
Holst said that the individual movements of the symphony could be performed separately, but the work is a true symphony, with the expected thematic development over multiple movements:
Prelude. Invocation to Pan (4:43)
I. Song and Bacchanal (10:31)
II. Ode on a Grecian Urn (11:38)
IIIa. Scherzo: Fancy (3:01)
IIIb. Scherzo. Folly’s Song (2:42)
IV. Finale (18:55)
The Prelude is an excellent précis of the composer’s musical tendencies since the composition of The Planets. While a bit static, itis full of orchestral color. The Song is very beautiful, an excellent example of Holst’s “tender austerity”. Orchestral color is again foremost in the Bacchanal as Bacchus is heralded as the god of wine.
The second movement is a setting of Keats’s famous Ode on a Grecian Urn. Here the soloist is silent for most of the movement. Holst uses the orchestra as an equal player to contrast with the choral parts. The high point of the movement, indeed of the symphony, is the choral/orchestral statement of the famous words “beauty is truth, truth beauty”, followed by the soprano’s “—that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”.
Holst’s choice of words for the scherzo got him in trouble with some critics, but – as Imogen Holst said in one of her books about her father – “he knew exactly what he wanted” when it came to the words for the symphony. The movement is a true scherzo. The opening poem, Fancy, features imaginative modulations for the chorus and the orchestra. The trio section, to Keats’s Folly’s Song, is not as impressive, but there follows the brilliant return of the opening material, played only by the orchestra.
Holst sets several Keats texts in the fourth movement, with soprano and chorus alternating. That takes up more than a third of the work’s entire length. He immediately commands the listener’s attention with the soprano’s ringing delivery of the words “Spirit here that reignest”, followed by austere music from the chorus and then a lovely violin solo. The final chorus shows a joy not evident up to now. The final moments are among the composer’s most profound inspirations.
Sir Malcolm Sargent was sometimes criticized for the alacrity of his tempi. Indeed, this performance is faster than one might expect, but Sargent’s control of both chorus and orchestra is almost supernatural. As we have already mentioned, he also brings out all of Holst’s mastery of vocal and orchestral color. Soprano Heather Harper mixes austerity and vocal strength as appropriate.
We should by no means neglect the companion work on this disc, the “Oriental Suite” Beni Mora. Holst wrote it after a 1908 trip to Algiers that he undertook for his health, which was never of the best. As Simon Heffer points out in his notes, in Beni Mora, as in many of the composer’s “Eastern” works, “the strong elements of oriental influence are quickly contrasted with music that could only be English”.
The movements are named “First Dance”, “Second Dance” and “In the Street of the Ouled Naïls”. The latter, as Simon Heffer indicates, may be a reference to the once-popular novel by Robert Hichens, The Garden of Allah. The Beni Mora suite is one of the most energetic of the works of Holst’s early maturity. This is a studio recording. While not quite as exciting as that of the Choral Symphony, it is still a splendid performance.
In a recent review of Franz Schmidt’s works, I wrote about Lani Spahr’s audio restorations. I can only say he has exceeded himself with this new release. The recording of Beni Mora was re-released in 2004, not in Spahr’s remastering. Here it sounds almost like a new CD. The Choral Symphony in a mono BBC was more of a challenge, but again Spahr rises to the occasion. This release adds another fine interpretation of the Choral Symphony to what is really a sparse field.
William Kreindler
Previous reviews: Nick Barnard (April 2025) ~ John Quinn (June 2025)
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