Holst 8: The Wandering Composer

“A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor” 

(Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native)

The bleak, imaginary landscape of Hardy's great, gloomy novel inspired Gustav Holst to write one of his greatest and most atmospheric pieces - the orchestral tone poem of 1927, Egdon Heath. 

Holst wrote another quotation from the novel on his score which will give you a strong sense of what his piece is seeking to convey:

"A place perfectly accordant with man's nature—neither ghastly, hateful nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning nor tame; but like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony."

Egdon Heath may exhibit much of the restraint of late Holst, but it is full of evocative power. Double basses quietly introduce the first of its themes - a mysterious, gloomy, meandering melody - and the other strings echo and then develop it contrapuntally, slowly, just as quietly, while winds interject  remote-sounding chords made up of thirds meeting in contrary motion. The melody is eventually harmonised bleakly in a way which reminds me a little of the cold, quiet, menacing opening of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony of 1957. A vast expanse of loneliness is being evoked. Approaching three minutes in and a warmer idea (which sounds a little like a chorale when the brass first take it up) rises through the sections of the orchestra like a figure seen approaching from the distance. It is immediately followed by restless string figuration and an agitated oboe theme. All three themes then combine for a short climax before the music sinks back gloomily onto the first three notes of the opening, meandering theme. The chorale-like brass theme return, now walking closely to us, confidently yet not without a wistful air - as if striding through the desolate heathland lost in its own world of thought. The figure walks on to a classic Holstian bass line. A new string melody flows in around it - a more lyrical phrase - but the section pauses on a dissonance and woodwinds takes up the vision of bleakness against quiet, austere chords whose tonality is ambiguous to say the least. The desolation is all around and the walking figure is but a speck of humanity on the face of it. A strange, disembodied dance passes like the ghost of a folksong, but the mysterious, meandering music of the opening rises again and we are left alone with the furze of Egdon Heath, the figure (the brass chorale) glimpsed receding into the distance. The piece ends very quietly in darkness.

Holst himself held Egdon Heath to be his greatest piece. I would not wish to demote the Hymn of Jesus by agreeing, but this austere, impressionistic rhapsody is a piece of deep beauty and is to be ranked a close second. As my previous post hopefully showed, Gustav Holst (despite his failing health) was still functioning at the top of his game. Egdon Heath is Exhibit A in proving that point.

A further example is A Moorside Suite from 1928, which saw the composer returning to the spirit of the earlier suites for amateurs. This time he was writing for brass band. (The work started out as a competition piece for the BBC and the National Brass Band Festival Committee.) It was the first work to be written for brass band by a significant British composer. The folksy Scherzo begins with a jaunty jig-like tune on cornet and has a tonal simplicity unusual in the later pieces. The beautiful trio section switches to the major and has a fine hymn-like melody which Holst surrounds with fanfares and rich harmonies. The beautiful central Nocturne is full of warmth, a solo cornet announcing its lovely but melancholy melody, with melting horn echoes. The key changes and the pace slows for the glowing hymn-like central passage which proceeds at a slow walking pace over one of the composer's characteristic bass lines. Part of the euphonious feel of this movement comes from its use of 'Romantic' thirds and sixths rather than 'Modern' fourths and fifths. The entertaining final March is typically jaunty, bracing and full of catchy tunes, though there are slower, noble passages too. This is the movement where the percussion make the greatest contribution - from the snare-drum near the start to the crashing cymbals at the end. A Moorside Suite is a delight.

And so is the Double Concerto for two violins and orchestra, another late masterpiece. There are several features in this work that are often associated with Holst's final period - Neo-Classical forms, clarity of texture, an emphasis on counterpoint, a thoroughgoing use of polytonality - but with these 'modern' elements go achingly lovely melodies and others with the sharp tang of English folksong. Everything hangs together convincingly though. It was written for two of the composers friends, the sisters Adila Fachiri and Jelly d'Aranyi (pictured below), for whom Bartok also wrote important pieces. There are three movement (appropriate for a Neo-Classical 'Back to Bach' concerto) - Scherzo, Lament and Variations on a Ground. If you listened to the Terzetto, Holst's first thoroughgoing essay in polytonality, you might recognise the reference to it made during the Scherzo. The movement also features a jolly folktune-style melody that seems to take us back to the world of Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity. The Lament begins a soulful communing between the two soloists before giving us a melancholy folk-like tune. The Variations on a Ground puts Holst's trademark ostinatos to fine use and is full of bold orchestral gestures. 

Alas, I'm unable to link to the 12 Songs of Humbert Wolfe of 1929, and especially to one of my favourite songs, the remarkable Betelgeuse. If you ever get a chance to hear it, please do. The play of triads a semitone apart in that song create a moving, magical effect. [Ah, and hear it you can here!]

Instead, it's time for another Holst opera - a short, sardonic one-acter called The Wandering Scholar, which (as so often) shows how various and unpredictable the composer was at all stages of his career, but at this late one in particular. (The Chaucerian plot can be read here.) It's an entertaining piece and has a Britten-like naturalness to its vocal lines which makes it easy for English language-speaking listeners to follow the story. Many of the melodies have the character of folksong, which Holst could write in at the drop of a hat. Unsurprisingly (but unusually) the opera was a success with the public at the time but, like so many Holst scores, soon fell into unjust obscurity. 

Another favourite of mine from these years is the tone poem Hammersmith from 1930, originally written for military band. The piece comes in two sections, Prelude and Scherzo. The haunting and gravely beautiful Prelude depicts the River Thames flowing through that part of London. Given how dirty the river was in those days, the dour, murky sound of the opening of Holst's depiction seems remarkably appropriate! (How unlike Richard Strauss's Danube or Wagner's Rhine!) This wonderful grey, grim sonority is achieved by the slow ground-like bass line set up by the tuba and euphonium. The initial austerity of the part-writing soon begin to glow with dark warmth. The whole section gives the impressions of inexorable movement. The Scherzo depicts the people of Hammersmith. Reviving (to very different effect) the strategy used in the finale of Beni Mora, Holst superimposes various musical lines to depict the busy crowds, the traders (etc) as they mill about on the streets cheerfully. The river theme provides one of those lines. After reaching a final wild climax, the crowds begin to disperse and, in time, the music of the Prelude returns, as if everyone has gone home to sleep, and the piece ends as peacefully as it began with the quiet, slow flowing of  the Thames. 

Another major work from this date is the ambitious A Choral Fantasia, a work scored for solo soprano, chorus, brass, strings, percussion and organ (i.e. no woodwinds). The piece sets the Ode to Music by the poet laureate Robert Bridges (the composer's friend whose verse was also set in the First Choral Symphony). Brace yourselves for the opening - a tremendous burst of dissonant organ sound.  The organ is the lead player in the piece. The soprano sings enters and sings "Man born of desire, cometh out of the night" with quiet organ accompaniment. Fanfares sound and drums thunder out, leaving in their wake a dour march rhythm. A very quiet fugato follows on organ, full of chromatic daring. It crescendos slowly until brass and drums blast into the climax, pounding out a 5/4 rhythm that is, if anything, even fiercer than that in Mars. After a quiet aftermath, the chorus make their quiet, consoling entry in 7/4 singing "Rejoice, ye dead where ere your spirits dwell" to a warm accompaniment. This passage is more akin to a trio section in a massive scherzo that to a development section in a symphonic movement. The opening organ music returns after this, beginning what is in effect a recapitulation. All the familiar landmarks leading up to that 'trio section' are revisited, albeit with many a tweak of colour, texture and harmony along the way. After a rather beautiful passage for the strings, the solo soprano finally returns and, as so often with Holst's death-possessed pieces, the work ends in a spirit of resignation.

Even as late at 1930, Holst was still arranging folksongs. One of his Welsh folksong arrangements, My Sweetheart's Like Venus, shows how beautifully he could do it. 

One area of music that has been conspicuous by its rarity in Holst's output, though, is solo piano music. He did write some pieces though, including the late Nocturne and Jig. The characteristic tang of the Nocturne arises from its use of open fifths in the left-hand melody set against perfect fourths in the right-hand accompaniment. There is something of a rain-soaked Debussy Image about this piece. The Jig is contrapuntal, with a folk-flavoured melody shining through its chromatic/bitonal figuration. I wouldn't place them among his fine achievements, but they are worth a few airings at recitals.

Being ever-open-to-new-things, Holst wrote a film score (The Bells) in 1931. What that sounds like I cannot say. He also wrote a piece for an American jazz-band called...er...Jazz-Band Piece (Mr. Shilkret's Maggot. Imogen Holst (below) took hold of it, revised it and released it as his Capriccio. It is a truly delightful piece, with an extremely catchy march tune at its heart, introduced by three trumpets. It doesn't sound jazzy, however, any more than his Japanese Suite sounds Japanese. The piece opens with a lovely viola solo playing a slow variant of this chirpy theme and making it into something dreamy and folksong-like. 

We're nearing the end of my series on Gustav Holst and have arrived at his final suite for amateur forces, the Brook Green Suite of 1933 - a piece that takes us back to the days of the St. Paul's Suite and was indeed written for the school's junior orchestra. It's not quite as good as the St. Paul's Suite, but it is a likeable work nonetheless.The Prelude takes Holst's trademark falling bass-lines one step forwards, using one that consists of a falling major-key scales. Over it he sets a charming tune of Classical shapeliness. The central Air has two fine tunes, the first sounding rather Renaissance-y, the other more folksy. I would say that Warlock's Capriol Suite is not too in spirit from the Brook Green Suite here. The closing Dance is, as all the closing movements of the amateur suites have been, fast, tuneful and fun.

Imogen reckoned that the Lyric Movement for viola and chamber orchestra, one of his last works, was one of her father's best pieces. I'm inclined to agree with her. The movement is, indeed, lyrical and though there is a touch of Hindemith-like angularity to its melodies and the work certainly has a measure of austerity about it, the warmth and depth of Holst's invention comes through strongly; indeed, it feels like a deeply personal piece. The expressive use of dissonance in this piece is particularly telling. 

And finally...

Holst was composing a symphony in the year leading up to his death in 1934. Only one movement from it survives, a Scherzo. This is an extraordinary piece. Its main section seems to be living on its nerves part of the time and erupting into anger the next - in other words, part-Mercury, part-Mars. The harmonic language, as with the Lyric Movement, is certainly that of a composer who has moved some way beyond The Planets - at least in parts of the piece. The middle section brings in more lyrical material, over characteristic oscillating chords - albeit chords that change colour as frequently as a hyperactive chameleon. 

And that brings to a close my fairly exhaustive but (for me) not remotely exhausting survey of the music of Gustav Holst. I hope you've discovered some great music along the way and that much of it will stay with you. I certainly have enjoyed meeting some wonderful pieces I didn't know, along with catching up with a lot of old friends. 

And birth they do not use

nor death on Betelgeuse,

and the God, of whom we are

infinite dust, is there

a single leaf of those

  gold leaves on Betelgeuse

Holst 7: After the Fall

After his brief period of popularity following the triumph of The Planets, Holst suffered an emotional blow following the failure of his opera The Perfect Fool. Its unsuccessful première, however, followed something even more serious - a physical blow from which he would never fully recover. A month earlier, in February 1923, he collapsed on a platform while conducting at University College, Reading, hurting the back of his head and suffering what seemed at the time to be only slight concussion. The consequences of his fall, however, were worse than first thought. He retired from teaching as a result. 

There has been considerable speculation about how much the change in Holst's manner immediately following the accident, towards austerity, bleakness, what some see as dryness and others as sterility, was a direct result of his sudden decline in health. Not being a medical expert, I cannot say! There are certainly works from across the maturity of Holst's output where austerity (Savitri) and bleakness (Saturn) can be found prior to 1923. Except for certainly early works, he was never one for Romantic gushing. The late works can - and probably should - be seen as yet another natural progression in his development as a composer, the full release of a natural tendency towards emotional coolness and counterpoint that had always been there within him.  

That the Neo-Classical, contrapuntal bent in Holst's late music didn't come out of nowhere will be obvious to any of you who have listened to the military band suites or to the St. Paul's Suite, or have acquainted yourselves with some of the composer's choral music. As a useful symbol of this, there are two works paired as Op.40 that sit either side of February 1923 - the Fugal Overture of 1922 and the Fugal Concerto of 1923. The Fugal Overture will surely appeal to anybody who loves the suites, as it has the same tuneful robustness and joviality - plus it has sleighbells! There are driving rhythms, contrasts of mood and texture, a catchy tune and some lightly-worn counterpoint. What's not to enjoy? What then of the Fugal Concerto? Well, it's hardly a world away from the Overture, but the scoring, structure and general character of the piece is undoubtably much more Classical-sounding. So, yes, we can count it has being something new, something Neo-Classical. Now, this change could have been the the result of the ever-open ears of Gustav Holst picking up on the Neo-Classical trend emanating from  continental Europe. That is a distinct possibility. (He had admired Stravinsky for some time and accounts quote him praising Stravinsky's anti-'sentiment' stance.) The piece, written for flute, oboe and string orchestra, could hardly be less austere, bleak or dry though. It is adorable. The first movement is full of tuneful energy, while the middle movement is a beautiful, wistful canon between the soloists and a solo viola and the finale is one of Holst's dances, with a genuine English folk song for good measure which the composer's weaves contrapuntally into his main fugue theme. The Fugal Concerto is a great favourite of mine. I hope you'll like it too. I think many more of these late works are just as wonderful. Please see what you think of them.

Having retired from his teaching duties to concentrate on composition, Holst's pace picked up somewhat - despite his health problems. His followed the Fugal Concerto will another opera and a choral symphony. The First Choral Symphony, setting poems by Keats (he never got beyond sketches for a Second Choral Symphony) was even less of a public success than The Perfect Fool and the composer's popularity never recovered from it. Even his friend RVW wasn't keen on it. What was the problem? Well, there is  a coolness to some of the music (mostly appropriately in the second movement, which sets the Ode to a Grecian Urn - "Cold pastoral!"), and it does have passages where the Stravinskyan tastes of Holst show through - and no longer just the public-pleasing Stravinsky of Petrushka or the public-wowing Stravinsky of the Rite of Spring. Some signs of Les noces, for example, can be heard. British audiences of the time would have warmed to neither of these qualities (especially the 'modern' aspects). Nor were they wild about symphonies that end quietly rather than triumphantly. That said, I must admit to being with RVW on this one. I too feel "cold admiration" for the piece - for the most part. The opening of the Prelude to the first movement ('Invocation to Pan') with its quiet, murky (fugal) string writing and hushed, monotone chanting is certainly not crowd-pleasing. It is, however, astonishingly original - and much surely rank as the most 'modern'/daring music yet written in Britain. (It reminds me, oddly, of the opening of Shostakovich's experimental Second Symphony of three years later). When the voices begin to sing, we arrive back on more familiar territory. The first movement proper, Song and Bacchanal, is introduced by a viola solo which plays an obbligato role throughout the solo soprano Song - a beautiful section that reminds me a little of Savitri. The rhythm changes to 7/4 time and the colours of the orchestral brighten considerably for the Bacchanal and the fourths-based melodies and harmonies give the music a Stravinskyan tang. The second movement, that responsive setting of the Ode to a Grecian Urn, makes the fifth its interval of choice - you will hear them often as open fifths. The scherzo (the 'Fancy' chorus) is my favourite movement. It has something of Mercury about it, but with added bitonal bite, and requires some fleet-footed, sure-footed singing!  Its trio ('Folly's Song') brings the spirit of robust folksong into the symphony. Overall, it strikingly anticipates Benjamin Britten. (I bet Imogen liked it!) The closing section will give Stravinsky enthusiasts a few 'aha!' moments. As for the finale, it makes some striking use of piled-up fourths and have several attractive passages but is, I would say - like the symphony as a whole - uneven. 

As for Holst's 1924 Falstaff opera At the Boar's Head, I am (alas) unable to comment. It is said to be a light piece absolutely crammed with folksongs - which sounds fun! A world away from that is the motet for mezzo, tenor and unaccompanied mixed choir The Evening-Watch: Dialogue between Body and Soul, a setting of the metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan. The soloists sing the words of the 'Body' while the chorus sings those of the 'Soul'. This is a beautiful piece, cool and rather remote. The harmonies have an unusual and interesting flavour, many being built on piled-up fourths which sometimes move in parallel. Holst wanted the music to remain as quiet and possible until the closing bars, when the chorus swells to a glowing climax to illustrate the words, "Yet, this take with thee; the last gasp of time is thy first breath, and man's eternal prime". 

That Holst was pursuing ever more radical paths can be heard in his two-movement Terzetto for flute, oboe and violin (or clarinet) of 1925. The piece is a study in polytonality (the simultaneous use of several keys) - with the flute playing in A major, the oboe in A flat major and the viola (clarinet) in C major. As you will hopefully now be well aware, bitonality (the simultaneous use of two keys) had been a much-used part of Holst's armoury for many years. This only took the step one stage on - and Holst was to use polytonality again. The result in fine performances doesn't remotely sound like an experiment; indeed, it sounds perfectly natural and beguiling. If anything, Holst sounds as breezy as a Milhaud in this piece.

Few listeners will deny the beauty, the warmth and the sheer quality of the Seven Part-songs, Op.44 (all settings of Robert Bridges) for solo soprano, 3-part women's chorus and string orchestra. This is one of my favourite Holst works - and one that deserves to be much better known. If you try no other pieces in this post, please try this one. A viola drone accompanies the attractive melody at the start of the first song, "Say who is this?", an introspective number that ends with the entry of the solo soprano. The soprano engages in dialogue-like exchanges with the chorus in the second song, "O Love, I complain", a particularly beautiful song with some especially warm harmonies. The tonal radiance of this number at its climax is something very special. The third song, "Angel spirits of sleep", begins in deep peacefulness, though "the spirits of sleep" are soon dancing to a folksong-like phrase before the song seems to nod off (simply stopping). "When we first met", the fourth song, takes the form of a canon, initially between solo singers and solo violins. This is, like the second song, something very special. Falling and rising scale fragments act like ostinatos in the accompaniment to "Sorrow and joy", the fifth song. "Love on my heart from Heaven fell" has a perfectly sculpted lyrical melody for the soprano to begin with, accompanied by the strings who then fall silent for the central choral episode before returning to accompany the melody again, this time sung by sopranos in unison. The final song, "Assemble all ye maidens", is the longest and most complex of the set by some way, being particularly harmonically intriguing, with modal writing over drones (including open fifth drones) and chromatic ostinato patterns. 

As ever, Holst is the soul of unpredictability: Neo-classical concertos, ambitious choral symphonies, serious-minded motets, experimental chamber pieces and lyrical part-songs...and then the endearing choral ballet The Golden Goose of 1926. This cheerful charmer, written for amateurs, has folksy tunes, clean textures and bags of orchestral colour. The plot is a Grimm fairy tale about the princess who never laughed. Of course, she's laughing by the end and everyone lives happily ever after. I feel happy after hearing it. A second choral ballet followed, The Morning of the Year (apparently the first work to be commissioned by the BBC.) It is a more serious piece than the delightful The Golden Goose (representing "the mating ordained by Nature to happen in the spring of each year") and contains passages of great beauty - such as its opening (whose horn fanfare has more than a little of The Hymn of Jesus about it) - and others that generate mystery or excitement. There's polytonality and rich counterpoint too, as befits this period of Holst's development but - as so often if these late pieces - that nothing to fear, any more than the bitonality of Mercury and Neptune or the counterpoint of the Chaconne from the First Suite for Military Band are things to fear. You will also hear dances in 5/4 and 7/4 time. The Morning of the Year is a treat from start to finish, with plenty of tunes to enjoy along the way. 

What followed next was another of Holst's greatest works...but that will do for the next post.

Holst 6: Before the Fall

Walt Whitman always meant a lot to Gustav Holst. From the early overture (1899) that bears the poet's name, through The Mystic Trumpeter (1904, a work I've never heard) and A Dirge for Two Veterans 1914), settings of his verses had punctuated the composer's output and as the First World War ended it was to Whitman that Holst turned again for his Ode to Death, setting his Lovely and Soothing Death from Leaves of Grass. Holst "was much possessed by death" (to paraphrase T.S. Eliot), dwelling on it in several of his finest works - including Savitri, A Dirge for Two Veterans and Saturn - and the Ode to Death is another of these fine works. The opening of the piece ("Come lovely and soothing Death") has something of the ethereal strangeness of Neptune as quiet wind chords (flecked by the harp) fall over a barely audible drone and female voices sing "Come". I can't say I find the icy serenity of the music "soothing" (it gives me butterflies in the stomach) but it is certainly very beautiful and mystical. The whole first paragraph of the piece is Holst operating at the peak of his powers. Suddenly the spell is shattered and a loud cry of praise to "the fathomless universe" is heard. The short "For life and joy" section doesn't strike me as being on the same elevated level but the following section, beginning "Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet", puts the Ode back on track with its five-note ground bass and its 5/4 march tread. The poetry talks of chanting, and there is a hint of plainchant in some of the chorus's phrases here. The opening music returns midway through the Ode and its consoling final female chorus, and also at the end ("I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!"), where the winds and harp are joined by Holst's beloved celesta. 

Whitman's poem was a memorial to the assassinated Lincoln, Holst's Ode was composed in memory of "Cecil Coles and the others." Coles, a friend of Holst's, was a fine Scottish composer killed by sniper fire on the battlefields of France. His Behind the Lines contains a haunting Cortège. Among Coles's other works are Fra Giacomo, a passionate and powerful post-Wagnerian scena for baritone and orchestra which you really ought to give a listen to, the skilful A Comedy of Errors overture (the opening figure of which any Wagnerians out there will surely recognise the provenance of!) and the Four Verlaine Songs for soprano and orchestra (full of Wagnerian sweep). Coles was just thirty when he died on the Somme.

The next three years involved a lot of work on opera and ballet. The short ballet The Lure will lighten your mood after the Ode to Death! The scenario of the ballet is about a (female) moth and a (male) candle who is in love with her but (killer of other moths that he is) ends up by getting snuffed by a greater power. Ho-hum! Appropriate to this flimsy story, the music is in the lighter vein we found in the first movement of Beni Mora and throughout the Japanese Suite. It is a wholly delightful score, lasting a mere ten minutes, full of ear-grabbing tunes and colourful orchestration. The motor rhythms of the opening and the 'exotic' dance they launch are exciting and the touches of Stravinsky's Petrushka that follow are irresistible. There's also an entertaining folksong-based section (just over four minutes) that might well remind you of the jovial parts of The Planets. 

The more famous ballet of this period is that from his opera The Perfect Fool. The opera soon sank without trace but the ballet (which Holst wrote first) became one of Holst's more performed (and recorded) pieces. The ballet is another piece for those listeners seeking something rather like The Planets. It opens with the music associated in the opera with the Wizard, music that bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Uranus the Magician. The fanfare on trombones (and tuba) is also the one which opens the opera. This leads straight into the Dance of the Spirits of Earth, which contains plenty of Jupiter-like writing. Its 7/8 time signature explains the movement's somewhat lopsided character. This section rises up from the lower regions of the orchestra, with the bassoons and a wooden stick setting the underlying rhythm going and the cellos and double basses beginning the tune, and grows in energy before switching into 3/8 time (you'll spot that moment as the timpani very firmly establish the new rhythm) for an exciting exciting.  A solo viola summons the Dance of the Spirits of the Water - a dance strongly recalling the delicate sounds of Venus. The viola is answered by wind chords of cool beauty and by an ostinato from the celesta, which accompanies the tasters for the melody to come on solo horn. The Dance itself uses high woodwinds (including piccolo) accompanied by harp and celesta to present the tune. It is a lovely section, with a tune that might have come from the Japanese Suite. The Dance of the Spirits of Fire - vivid Uranus-like music (complete with xylophone) - is the third and final dance and makes for a suitably fiery climax. 

What of the opera itself? Well, the title The Perfect Fool rather gives the game away if you know your Wagner - it's meant as a parody of Wagner's Parsifal. The opera sends up Wagner, most obviously in the scene with the Traveller (alluding to Wotan as the Wanderer in the Ring), as well as Verdi in the scene with the Troubadour (4.10 into the link, obviously alluding to Il Trovatore). Listening to it reminds me that Holst loved Sullivan - of Gilbert and Sullivan fame - as a young man. His opera is very much in that line. (You can hear the whole opera, bit by bit, by following these links in order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). 

Maggie Teyte, Holst's 'Princess'

Holst 5: Divine Grace is Dancing

An intriguing bit of biographical detail first. Gustav Holst tried to fight for Britain at the start of the First World War but was rejected on health grounds. At the time his name was still Gustav von Holst, but anti-German feeling forced him to ditch the "von" and by 1918 he was officially called Gustav Holst. 

So, what did Gustav Holst write during the war, as well as completing The Planets? Well, he was being himself and doing the unexpected - and doing so with a vengeance. 

The next opus number along, the Japanese Suite (written for a Japanese dancer who whistled some of his country's tunes to Holst for him to work into the piece) is a work that no one would place on the same level of inspiration as The Planets. As well as not sounding very Japanese, for the most part it reverts to the exotic picture postcard manner of the first movement of Beni Mora - which, given that it sounds more Algerian than Japanese, is apt! Still, I have a real soft spot for it. It is first-rate light music. Light music is a wonderful art form that is too easily dismissed. There is a prelude. 'Song of the Fisherman', with a pleasant tune and some enjoyable harmonic turns, which returns as a short interlude later. There's also the colourful and rather exciting 'Ceremonial Dance' and a charming music box-like 'Dance of the Marionette' (audibly influenced by Stravinsky's Petrushka), plus a pretty 'Dance under the Cherry Tree' and a Kevin Costner-friendly finale called 'Dance of the Wolves' where Holst sets motor rhythms to work. 

So a spot of exotic light music, and that was followed by a work for mixed a cappella chorus where my reaction on first hearing the Ave Maria of 1900 (see my first post about Holst) - one of disbelief that it was actually by Holst - resurfaces. It is remarkable that the composer who was finishing off The Planets at that time could also write the Nunc Dimittis of 1915 - a fresh and beautiful work for double choir that may have some touches of modern Anglican harmony but mostly breathes the air of late-Renaissance polyphony. I doubt I would have named Holst as the composer of this piece until I'd gone through at least a couple of hundred other guesses first! 

First-rate unaccompanied choral music is a key feature of this period of the composer's development. Some of it is English folksong-or-medieval/Renaissance-song-inspired, but some of it only sounds as if it is. Holst's arrangement of the lovely Middle English carol Lullay My Liking falls into the first category, as does one of my favourite Holst pieces, Diverus and Lazarus (unavailable to be linked to), There was a Tree, our old friends The Song of the Blacksmith, I Love My Love and Swansea Town (familiar from the suites). The best example of the second category is the famous part-song This Have I Done for My True Love of 1916. Many people (including me) simply assume that its tune is an old folksong. It isn't. Gustav Holst wrote the tune himself. The words are a traditional Cornish poem, Tomorrow Will Be My Dancing Day. ('Tomorrow' was often Holst's dancing day, especially when spirituality and dancing went hand in hand.) Each verse is given its own treatment, starting unforgettably with a soprano solo. The harmonies mix modality with tonality in a way that gives the piece a timeless quality. (Is it medieval? Is is modern?) 

Among the accompanied choral pieces of the time, there is a special warmth to Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence - a Christmas carol based on a 17th century French carol known, thanks to Vaughan Williams, as Picardy - and his arrangement of Turn Back, O Man has a bass-line that could not be more characteristic of the composer. 

Before we come to the crowning triumph of Holst's war years, The Hymn of Jesus, space must be given to the introspective Four Songs, Op.35 for soprano (or tenor) and violin (or viola) of 1916-17. Here voice and instrument are equal partners (like a singer and her soul) and the four songs (Jesu Sweet, Now Will I Sing, My Soul Has Nought But Fire and Ice, I Sing of a Maiden That Matchless Is and My Leman Is So True) fully capture the spirit of their medieval texts. They were inspired after the composer hear one of his pupils quietly singing to herself while playing her violin in church. They are very beautiful. 

We've now reached another of the highest peaks of the composer's output, the glorious Hymn of Jesus of 1917. 

Listeners looking beyond The Planets, longing for a piece that comes close to that suite's soundworld, often don't discover what they are looking for in the rest of Holst's output. The Hymn of Jesus is what they are looking for (I think) - and more besides. It is a wonderful masterpiece applying the spirits of Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter & Co. to a religious text (an ancient Gnostic one). Audiences love it.  Vaughan Williams memorably said after hearing its first performance that he just ‘wanted to get up and embrace everyone and then get drunk’. 

In the wake of bloody battles like the Somme, when morale back home needed a boost, what more affirmative work could there be that Holst's Hymn of Jesus?

The Prelude opens to the Easter plainchant melody Pange lingua played on a pair of trombones, unaccompanied. The chant is repeated with enchanting humanity on cor anglais against changing harmonies. Rocking major-key chords pierced by dissonance follow quietly and the organ, with a gentle tread, hints at what is about to be, summoning a distant treble (or female) semi-chorus who sing (to magical effect) a second Easter plainchant melody Vexilla regis over swaying, ethereal chords (alternating independently, as in sections of The Planets), with piano and celesta adding further enchantment. A second distant choir composed on tenors and basses then sing Pange lingua over a long-held chord on the strings. This is followed by a short orchestral coda, where memories of Venus are strong. 

The Hymn proper then begins with a full-blooded affirmation of ‘Glory to Thee, Father!' The words 'Glory to Thee' are chanted unaccompanied on a unison C, and then a blazing chord of E major for chorus and orchestra, over a ground bass, makes its thrilling impact on 'Father!' A characteristic six-note falling figure in the bass becomes an ostinato tread and, along with further choral cries, come magical recurring 'amens' in parallel thirds from the distant semi-chorus and a fascinating imitation of  'the Gift of Tongues' (the choir speaking). The next passage prepares us (through a series of exchanges between the two halves of the double choir) for the great dance to come. This breaks out at the words 'Divine grace is dancing' - which could have been Holst's motto! Note that it is in 5/4 time (just like some of the Rig Veda hymns), which was typical of Holst but not in any way typical of English choral music. This great dance is fast and colourful and turns into an exhilarating, syncopated outburst of joy at 'The heavenly spheres make music for us' - an eruption of delight fully involving the orchestra. Eventually the tempo slows and, to gorgeously harmonised chords, the words 'To who you gaze a lamp am I' are sung (the harmonies, tinged with bitonality, resolving onto consonance). In the next passage Holst weaves back in both the plainchant melodies and swaying chords of the Prelude. Vexilla regis is set dancing on the bassoons and becomes festive as the sopranos take it up (to the accompaniment of drums and piano). A new theme appears at 'Beholding what I suffer' (the only under par section of the work) and this climaxes. The treading bass-line and the 'amens' return and other earlier ideas are recalled, including the syncopated dance (softly). Listen out here for the fascinating whole-tone clusters on 'wisdom'. The great cry of ‘Glory to Thee, Father!' leads to a partial reprise and some more final beautiful 'amens'. 

The Hymn of Jesus is, I think, Holst's greatest piece.

Holst 4: Out of This World

Gustav Holst could be described as a 'one hit wonder' (if In the Bleak Mid-winter is conveniently forgotten!), though he certainly wasn't a 'one work wonder' - as my posts so far have hopefully proved beyond all reasonable doubt! The Planets is one of the best-known and best-loved of all pieces of British classical music. It has been a huge hit right from the time of its première towards the end of the First World War; indeed, Holst was nonplussed when he returned to Britain at the end of the war to find just how wildly popular it was. Its popularity has never waned. Audiences love it, critics love it, composers love it, even Imogen Holst loved some of it. I've loved it since my student days, many moons ago. I used to put a tape of it on while writing essays and when it had finished I would re-wind it and listen to it again. I reckon I must have listened to it at least a hundred times then. (I even wrote a poem about it. I won't embarrass myself - and you - by printing it here though.) And I still love it. Such popularity has its down sides. To Holst's regret (to put it mildly) - and mine - The Planets has overshadowed everything else he wrote. People seem to want The Planets and nothing else. They are, of course, missing out on so much. This series of posts is my very small contribution to helping rectify this sorry state of affairs.

That said, The Planets is about to get a post all to itself!

First though, something a bit different. Please give a listen to this complete performance of The Planets as you may never have heard it before. A version for piano duet was the original version of the piece (though Neptune was originally written for organ). Only afterwards did Holst orchestrate it into the form we know so well today. He then re-wrote it for two pianos. Now The Planets, I suspect you will agree, sounds remarkable enough on two pianos. The orchestration just makes it extra-extraordinary. I think that the benefit of hearing the two piano version is that you can hear more clearly that new influences had entered Holst's music with The Planets. He had become acquainted with the great early ballets of Stravinsky - especially Petrushka and The Rite of Spring and had heard some of the pioneering orchestral scores of Schoenberg, principally the Five Pieces for Orchestra. Those influences are commonplace references in discussion about The Planets. The piano version, however, makes it very clear (at least to me) that Holst had been keeping up to date with the music of Debussy and Ravel. If you know your Debussy and Ravel piano pieces, please listen to the delicate piano versions of Venus and Neptune and I hope you will hear their similarities to certain of the harmonies and textures of the Holst. The remarkable scoring of the familiar orchestral version somewhat masks those French Impressionist influences. I would perhaps suggest an awareness of Scriabin too, as a listen to Saturn on the piano seems to reveal. And what about Dukas and his Sorcerer's Apprentice for an influence on Uranus, the Magician? (I'd say that's the safest bet of all!) None of these influences, all thoroughly digested and transformed, takes away from the fact that The Planets is a remarkably original score, growing naturally out of the pieces we met in the last post and out of Holst's own profoundly inventive one-off imagination.

The suite The Planets had its origins in Holst's mysticism. He was keen on astrology, so the seven planets of The Planets aren't our rocky and gassy neighbours in the solar system (nor the gods and goddess of Ancient Rome) so much as what they psychically represent, a series of 'moods'. It's about horoscopes, not telescopes. It is by sheer good luck then that the music of The Planets fits so perfectly with our post-Voyager image of the real, physical planets of our solar system. Looking at film of the ethereal blue gas clouds of the giant Neptune whilst listening to the ethereal music of Holst's Neptune is an unbeatable match between sound and image. The beauty of the cloud-face of Venus (from an outsider's perspective only!) seems to fit to perfection the beauty of Holst's Venus. And so on. For that reason, I will preface each description of the seven movements of The Planets with a photograph of the appropriate planet.

Mars, the Bringer of War

Mars follows on from those wild dances in The Cloud Messenger, from the inhuman march of A Dirge for Two Veterans, from the 5/4 time rhythms of the Rig Veda hymns. It is sometimes presented as being a terrifying prophecy of the hellishness of the First World War, with its tanks and trenches. I heard a BBC Radio 3 talk about it fairly recently that pushed this line. Given that Mars was written in 1914 not 1917, this is pure hindsight - which doesn't stop it sounding as if it should be true. The clash of merciless rhythms, the glinting (tank) armour-like brass and percussion, the fierce dissonances, the hollow fanfares, those furious final chords, all sound as if they are painting a bleak vision of the violence of war. Part of the extraordinarily inhuman sound of the opening of the movement arises from the use of col legno - the technique of hitting the strings of bowed stringed instruments with the stick (back) of the bow rather than drawing the hair of the bow across the strings. (Chopin and Berlioz were the pioneers of col legno writing, and - as we know - Holst learned much about orchestration from Berlioz.) Mars has reverberated down the decades, finding itself being reflected in film score after film score. Everything from Star Wars to Star Trek and back again seems to boldly know Holst's Mars. Poor Hans Zimmer was apparently sued over allegations that he plagiarized it for the battle scenes of Gladiator, even though Zimmer's music is in 3/4 time and has a tune all of its own.

Venus, the Bringer of Peace

Venus provides the opposite vision to Mars. This is music of tenderness, beauty, at times sweetness. The calming horn calls, the soft tolling of delicately-coloured chords, the caresses of harps, the tinkling  of a celesta, harmonies built from sevenths moving in euphonious contrary motion to each other, the sudden warmth of strings rising through the texture, the lyrical song of the solo violin beginning the gently treading rapture of the middle section, the serene yet mysterious close - all cast a ravishing spell. As you will hopefully be aware from earlier posts, the style of Venus had been foreshadowed in many Holst pieces leading up to The Planets.  

Mercury, the Winged Messenger

Mercury is one of the two scherzos of the suite - and an extraordinary feat of composition. The virtuosity of the scoring is easy to hear but the ingenuity of the play of contrasting tempi (6/8 versus 3/4 - in other words 2 beats against 3 v 3 beats against 2) is just as important to this most light-footed of movements. Such a play of different tempi was not new to Holst's music, as all who know the Jig from the St. Paul's Suite will agree. The movement also moves at lightning speed through two keys simultaneously - a use of bitonality that was prophetic of the polytonality of some of the composer's late pieces. Here the effect is to conjure up the spirit of changeability. 'Quicksilver' - that old name for the element mercury - is just the word to capture the nature of Holst's Mercury. (Not by coincidence, of course). It's as if Mendelssohn's 'fairy scherzos' have been reborn for a new age.

Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

Jupiter remains the most popular movement from The Planets. The reasons for this are not hard to find.  There's its joviality for starters, and at its heart is a tune that is known to huge numbers of people, many of whom have never even heard of Holst - a tune that was turned (not by Holst himself though) into a patriotic song, "I vow to thee, my country." Yes, we may have heard it too often but it remains a great tune nonetheless. Some critics worry that it sounds completely out of place, coming out of nowhere - or at least out of some other work altogether - and is a populist cuckoo in the nest. I say 'Pah!' to that! Anyhow, it takes its place among a number of other memorable tunes. These tunes are the ones where, unusually for The Planets, the influence of folksong makes its presence felt. The movement is not all about catchy tunes, it's also about the way those tunes are built up - principally by means of the old Glinka method of variation by 'changing the background' (including the scoring) rather than the theme itself. The way Jupiter spins into being, driven by Holst's trademark ostinatos, is perfect for showing film footage of the real planet Jupiter spinning and it makes for an impressive and aptly magisterial start. The scoring throughout add to the spirit of exuberance, with six timpani being employed!

Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age

Saturn was Holst's own favourite movement from the suite (the suite he came to hate for its excessive popularity.) It is a stunning movement. Grim chords of ninths alternate like the slowed-down ticking of a clock, doleful melodic phrases pass above them, until a new ostinato enters and an austere funereal march begins. The march swells and ebbs away. The grim chords alternate again to a steady, dirge-like tread as the movement moves inexorably towards its huge climax where bells toll furiously, terrifyingly. The music then dies away, mournfully, to the sound of passing bells - until the closing bars bring in a sense of resignation and closure. It's my favourite movement too.

Uranus, the Magician

Uranus is the second scherzo of the suite. Half light-hearted, half sinister it is a Sorcerer's Apprentice with a mean streak. I don't doubt for a second that the grotesquery and vulgarity of parts of this exhilarating movement were exactly what Holst wanted. The wild folksong-like theme is quite something, as is the fiercely capricious dance/march that erupts midway. The four-note figure announced so forcefully at the start is the key to the movement's thematic workings. It crops up, in various guises, again and again. 

Neptune, the Mystic

Neptune is one of the most ethereal, mysterious and magical stretches of music ever composed - bringing "air from another planet", as Schoenberg might have said - and the cool radiance that flows in with the entrance of the wordless female double chorus is a wonderful coup. So is the remarkable slow fade-out at the end. This is said to be the first example in history. The ladies were, according to Holst, "to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed", while the last bar (after the orchestra falls silent) is "repeated until the sound is lost in the distance". We know all about fade-out endings nowadays, but this first fade-out remains a remarkable thing to hear for the first time. You listen and listen until you can no longer be sure if the voices are still sounding or whether they have stopped. As in Mercury and Mars, bitonality - the simultaneous play of two keys - plays a key part in creating the overall strangeness of sound, here to otherworldly effect. As in Mars, 5/4 time is used throughout  but again to completely different effect, here creating a feeling of deep stillness. Harps and celesta add to the intangible sound of the movement. Above all, the music is quiet, very quiet. 

****

As a coda (or a footnote), the British contemporary composer Colin Matthews (composer of the masterly Hidden Variables and Fourth Sonata) wrote an extra movement, premièred in 2000, which was to grow out of that magical final fade-out into infinity. He spotted the opportunity to add the planet (other than Earth) which Holst missed from the suite (it was only being discovered in 1930). Pluto, the Renewer was its title. It hasn't really caught on (despite several recordings) - and Colin's case wasn't helped when Pluto was (rightly) officially this piece, the composer wrote:

Pluto, the Renewer - I chose the only appropriate astrological attribute I could find - follows on without a break, before Neptune has quite faded away. There could hardly be music slower or more remote than Neptune, and I chose to make Pluto faster even than Mercury, thinking of solar winds, and perhaps the sudden appearance of comets from even more outlying reaches of the solar system. And, as if Holst’s music was still present in the background, all suddenly fades away to reveal the final chord of Neptune sustained in the distance.

It was a neat idea but the spell of Holst's fade-out really shouldn't be broken very often. That fade-out is as vital to the integrity of the piece as any of Stravinsky's perfectly-formed final chords. Moreover, regardless of any questions about the quality of CM's Pluto, his expressionist style feels just too far removed from that of Gustav Holst for the piece not to feel like an interloper from another solar system, despite the obvious care he took to ensure that audible connections (both motific and in terms of scoring) are made to the other Planets. On it's own terms I think it's a fascinating piece, with beautifully-scored quiet sections that recall the most delicate pages of Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra and violent outbursts that recall their fiercest pages. I can't resist, however, quoting one of the rare YouTube insults that doesn't make you despair of humanity. Even though I don't share its underlying sentiments, it's a good joke:

I think the whole declassification of Pluto as a Planet was just an excuse to not have to play this piece...

Holst 3: Going East

If you have been kind enough to follow all the links on my previous Gustav Holst posts, you will have heard a large number of pieces. Not one of them sounds like much like the Holst of The Planets or, indeed, of the other masterpiece that immediately followed it, The Hymn of Jesus. Did these extraordinary works come out of nowhere in Holst's development? No. Though they display some of the characteristics of the works we've met so far, they are much more closely related to the music that is the subject of this post - the Eastern-influenced music of 1907-14. These works are where the composer truly freed himself from his Romantic beginnings and became the great original he was.

Holst was strongly inclined to mysticism and very interested in Eastern religions, particularly Hinduism. He learned Sanskrit so as to be able to read and later translate Hindu texts. His three-act opera Sita was based on a story from the Ramayana and the one-act opera Savitri (1908) was based on a story from the Mahabharata.

Savitri is the key work. This short chamber opera (the first in Britain for over two hundred years), scored for soprano (Savitri), tenor (her husband, Satyavan), baritone (Death), a wordless female chorus an orchestra of just 12 musicians (two flutes, cor anglais, double string quartet and bass), places a value on austerity and simplicity - virtues some of the composer's late works also partake of. The opening, with no overture, is simply for two unaccompanied solo voices - that of Death, followed by that of Savitri. Three minutes of just two voices in counterpoint to each other. The story is just as simple:

Satyavan returns home to his wife Savitri to find that Death has come to claim him. Death is moved by Savitri's welcome for him and, in promising to her life in all its fullness, finds that he is forced to surrender his claim on her husband.

(Chester Novello)

It was a highly radical work for its time and place. Some music lovers both at the time and since have deeply appreciated the beauty and originality of this work while others have found it a chore to watch (or listen to). Oddly enough, given that this work is sometimes said to be anti-Wagnerian and given its undoubted originality, this is the first piece where I have heard clear evidence of Holst's Wagnerian influences. The vocal writing may owe something to Wagnerian recitative but it's the lit-from-behind orchestral writing of the second half of the opera where the spirit of the Ring, Tristan and Parsifal shine through most strongly. Perhaps that is why at least one leading critic held it to be an unsatisfactory experiment. Alongside this, there are flavours of folksong in some of the woodcutter Satyavan's music and certain phrases that have an Eastern (or, to my ears, North African) tinge. (Holst had just returned from Algeria before writing the opera). I have to say that it all hangs together perfectly for me. That unaccompanied opening, as Death draws near through the forest, is spine-tingling and Savitri's "Welcome, Lord", set against gorgeous harmonies from the hidden female chorus, is truly beautiful. The opera lasts a mere 35 minutes, so please give it a listen and see what you think.

Around the time of Savitri, Holst began setting his own translations from the Rig Veda. There are songs for voice and piano, but also choral pieces for various forces. I've never heard any of the songs, but all of the Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda (an almost complete selection), plus the enchanting Two Eastern Pictures, are a must for anyone wanting to get to the heart of Holst and his music. I quite lose myself in them.

The Choral Hymns come in four groups: the first from 1908 (1. Battle Hymn, 2. Hymn to the Unknown God, 3. Funeral Hymn) are for mixed chorus and orchestra (or piano); the second from 1909 (1. To Varuna (God of the Waters), 2. To Agni (God of Fire), 3. Funeral Chant) for female chorus and orchestra (or piano); the third from 1910 (1. Hymn to the Dawn, 2. Hymn to the Waters, 3. Hymn to Vena, 4. Hymn of the Travellers) for female chorus and harp (or piano); and the fourth (1. Hymn to Agni (The Sacrifical Fire), 2. Hymn to Soma, 3. Hymn to Manas, 4. Hymn to Indra) are for male chorus and string orchestra with brass ad libitum (or piano). The Two Eastern Pictures from 1911 (1. Spring, 2. Summer) are for female chorus and harp (or piano). 

Just to highlight a few things, there is a striking example of what was fast becoming a defining feature of Holst's music in To the Unknown God - that remarkable descending bass line - and Battle Hymn is in the 5/4 time of Mars. As early as To Agni there are remarkable foretastes of various fast sections in both The Planets and The Hymn to Jesus. (It is also in 5/4 time). The purity of sound in the third set is remarkable. (My favourite of the Choral Hymns, the delicious Hymn of the Travellers, ends this group). The fourth set (including the Hymn to Indra, one of the numbers missing from the link above), is a disappointment after everything that has gone before. It's as if the spell has been broken and something ordinary (if pleasant) has been put in its place. From that set, the Hymn to Soma always comes as a surprise, given that it had something of English folksong about it (with a slight twist of North Africa), while the Hymn to Manas, has parallels fifths that anticipate Venus. Better to forget the fourth set and listen to the magical Eastern Pictures instead (an alternative amateur performance is provided, with each word linking to one of the two 'pictures'!)  

Where did the new melodic shapes and modal harmonies found in these exotic pieces come from? By the looks of it they were imported into his style from Algeria following the composer's visit to that country (for health reasons), and seem to be North African-inspired rather than Indian. The best-known - and most openly expressed - result of that visit is the orchestral masterpiece Beni Mora. The first two movements - First Dance and Second Dance - are respectively vibrant and mysterious picture postcards, full of 'exotic' melodies of the kind the Russians had been delighting audiences with for decades. The First Dance is old-fashioned but fun, while the Second Dance has moments of unearthly harmony and orchestration that anticipate Venus from The Planets. The third movement, In the street of Ouled Naïls, however, is an astonishing piece of writing. In it Holst recreates an experience he had when he heard a man in the streets of North Africa playing the same four-note snatch of melody over and over again on his flute - for hours! Holst repeats his own snatch of melody a remarkable number of times in the course of this movement - apparently 163 times. Around this nagging figure he conjures a atmospheric nocturnal scene in a way that reminds me partly of Debussy's Iberia, and partly of Charles Ives's Central Park in the Dark, counterpointing various pieces of music against it and against each other - the music of procession, music from dance halls, music from cafés. The effect is hypnotic, disorientating and delightful. 

When I was much younger I borrowed a library book on the music of Gustav Holst written by his remarkable daughter, Imogen. The most striking thing about that book was both Imogen's enthusiasm for certain of his father's works but also the remarkable sharpness of her criticism of many others. She could be merciless about her father's music. She was far more of an uncritical enthusiast for another British composer, Benjamin Britten, to the extent of being widely seen as having set aside her own composing career to help promote his. I've always felt that Imogen rather set aside her father's music to help promote Britten too. She liked the works of her father that were most Britten-like and loathed those that didn't meet her highly exacting standards. Even three movements from The Planets failed to please her. Most of the early works that I've looked at so far were 'Wagnerian' failures for Imogen and her view was (understandably, given who she was) highly influential and kept many of these wonderful pieces away from the public ear for decades. One such piece was The Cloud Messenger, his ode for solo alto, chorus and orchestra of 1909-10. Imogen called it "a dismal failure".

The story, taken from the Meghaduta of the Classical Sanskrit writer Kalidasa, was one Holst himself partly translated. Its story, according to the Holst Society, runs as follows:

The Cloud Messenger is about an exiled poet from Central India who sends a cloud toward the Himalaya Mountains to relay a message of love to his wife, who is lonely. There are great moments of dance laced throughout the piece, which serve to symbolize the cloud listening in on the dances in the temples of the holy city. In the end, the cloud delivers its message by speaking softly into the sleeping ear of the poet's wife.

Next to Savitri, the Rig Veda hymns and the final movement of Beni Mora, parts of The Cloud Messenger do indeed appear like a backwards step, though generally its style isn't too far from the first two movements of Beni Mora; however, other parts of the piece are clearly the work of someone who would go to write The Planets and The Hymn of Jesus. I can't say I love it in its entirety, but there's such a lot of wonderful music in The Cloud Messenger that its long neglect was, to say the least, unfortunate. The march-like choral section beginning some twenty minutes in ('Tarry not, O Cloud, tarry not') is splendid (especially prophetic of the future), the climactic dance is exciting and the closing section, where the chorus speaks softly and the orchestra enters the terrain of The Planets most closely, is full of beauty and subtlety. The piece couldn't be further from being "a dismal failure". 

There are a few more pointer works before we man the rockets and journey to The Planets. One of the most attractive and little known is the 1912 setting of Psalm 86 ("To my humble supplication") for tenor, chorus and orchestra (or organ). This points specifically towards The Hymn to Jesus, with its plainchant-like use of a tune from the Calvinist Genevan Psalter of 1543. After the altos and basses have quietly sung the tune, the orchestra develops it beautifully over a pizzicato bass line. The solo tenor (who sings a plainchant-style recitative) enters and engages in lovely antiphonal exchanges with the sopranos and altos. Ethereal string writing and a short soprano solo follow before a climactic passage brings us to the work's quiet close. Why is this gem not better known? Its companion Psalm 148 ("Lord, Who Hast Made Us For Thine Own") is a different kettle of fish - and a pointer to nothing else in Holst's output. Written for schoolchildren, it has an Anglican feel that is very unusual for Holst; indeed, it sounds more like Vaughan Williams! It, too, is based on an old hymn tune, namely a tune from the Geistliche Catholische Kirchengesäng of 1623 - a tune many an Anglican knows as the popular hymn All Creatures of our God and King. It is a work whose warmth will win many listeners' affections. 

Much more characteristic of Holst (though unusual in setting Greek literature) - with its ostinatos and plainchant style melody, its female voices, its fanfares, its dancing rhythms, its brilliant orchestration - is the Hymn to Dionysus of 1913, a setting of one of the choruses from Euripides's Bacchae. Dancing worship was a running theme with Holst from the Rig Veda hymns onwards, reaching its apogee in The Hymn to Jesus, and the spirit of the Hymn to Dionysus was to be revisited in the Choral Symphony. Some of the orchestral passages might remind you of Jupiter.

Finally, as World War One was about to break out, Holst composed his powerful Walt Whitman setting A Dirge for Two Veterans (from 'Leaves of Grass') for male voices, brass and drums - a work that most naturally leads to Mars from The Planets. The stark austerity, the inhuman tread, the ominous drum-rolls, the menacing fanfares, the terse tone of this setting contrasts strikingly with that of his friend RVW, whose Dona Nobis Pacem of 1936 sets the same words. 

OK, it's time to make a cup of tea, don a spacesuit, reach for the horoscopes page of the daily paper and journey to The Planets.