Holst: Savitri

An inspired arrangement between Decca and Imogen Holst, led to a series of pioneering recordings of her father Gustav Holst’s music, which appeared on Argo and are now comprehensively released on CD as part of the Eloquence series. This collection highlights Holst’s fascination with mysticism and the Orient, with the inclusion of the Rig-Veda Hymns and the chamber opera Savitri, boasting a trio of luminaries – Janet Baker, Robert Tear and Thomas Helmsley – who, with Imogen Holst, give us a heart-rending performance of this episode from the Mahabharata, which tells how Savitri, the wife of a young woodcutter, wins back her husband, for whom Death has come, by the strength of her love and devotion The Seven Part-Songs, set to poems by Holst’s friend Robert Bridges are subtle and gracious, as befits their verses. Imogen Holst’s notes for the LPs – ‘acutely perceptive, objective and candid’ noted Gramophone’s reviewer Lionel Salter – are here reprinted as are the full texts.

Recording producer: David Harvey

Recording engineer: Kenneth Wilkinson

Recording location: Kingsway Hall, London, UK, October-November 1965

This all English album is a wonderful mix of the known and little known. Gustav Holst's opera in one act "Savitri" is based on an episode from the Indian classic Mahabharta. Holst created this work as a result of an almost obsessive fascination with spiritualism and Asian culture that swept through Europe prior to World War I.

Benjamin Britten's Op.1 "Sinfonietta" was written when he was an 18 year old music student and is dedicated to his teacher Frank Bridge.

"The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams is, in his own words, "an English landscape transcribed into musical terms." This work is one of the 20th century's most beautiful Pastorales, set for solo violin and orchestra.