Holst: The Hymn of Jesus, H140

An inspired arrangement between Decca and Imogen Holst, led to a series of pioneering recordings of her father Gustave Holst’s music, which appeared on Argo and are now comprehensively released on CD as part of the Eloquence series. This collection opens with the Pears/Britten recording of a substantial English song cycle never before published on CD, the twelve Humbert Wolfe settings, beautifully sung and mercurially played. Wolfe, largely forgotten today, ‘was a civil servant, essentially a Londoner, and a miniaturist with an individual brand of whimsy and, at his best, a real feeling for words’ (Gramophone). Imogen Holst’s original notes for the LPs – ‘acutely perceptive, objective and candid’ noted Gramophone’s reviewer Lionel Salter – are here reprinted as are the full texts. Much of the music was practically unknown at the time of this recording (beautifully captured by legendary Decca engineer Kenneth Wilkinson in London’s Kingsway Hall) and well overdue for publication. The collection is rounded off by Boult’s celebrated 1961 recording of The Hymn of Jesus.

Recording producers: David Harvey (Humbert Wolfe Songs, Ave Maria, Three Welsh Folk Songs, The Song of the Blacksmith, Two Part-Songs, Two Carols); Christopher Raeburn (The Hymn of Jesus)

Recording engineers: Kenneth Wilkinson (Humbert Wolfe Songs, Ave Maria, Three Welsh Folk Songs, The Song of the Blacksmith, Two Part-songs, Two Carols); Alan Reeve (The Hymn of Jesus)

Recording location: Kingsway Hall, London, United Kingdom, March 1962 (The Hymn of Jesus), December 1965 (Humbert Wolfe Songs, Ave Maria, Three Welsh Folk Songs, The Song of the Blacksmith, Two Part-songs, Two Carols)

Renowned above all for the colour and splendour of The Planets, Holst created a uniquely idiosyncratic and outward-looking body of work, informed by his personal enthusiasms; for education, native folksong, the European avant-garde and Indian mysticism. This collection surveys all the musical genres in which he made his mark, from brass band to opera, in performances by some of his most noted champions.

Gustav Holst was born in Cheltenham on 21st September 1874. He learnt the piano from early age but, suffering from asthma and short sight, he found it hard. At the age of seven his mother died. He began to compose at Cheltenham Grammar School with Berlioz’s treatise on instrumentation as his guide and at seventeen he was conducting local village choirs. The neuritis in his right arm had convinced his father that he would never become a solo pianist so he was allowed a few months in Oxford to learn counterpoint before moving to London to study composition with Stanford.

He entered the Royal College of Music in 1893 but did not win a scholarship until two years later – Stanford found him hardworking rather than brilliant. His compositions tended to be saturated with imitations of Wagner. In 1895 he met Vaughan Williams and for the rest of his life they would play sketches of their latest compositions to each other.

He was invited to conduct the Hammersmith Socialist Choir in William Morris’s house where he met his future wife. He became fascinated by Hindu literature and philosophy to such an extent that he decided to learn Sanskrit – his Rig Veda settings are testament to this interest. He had also studied the trombone at college and it was this which brought him employment, with the Carl Rosa Opera and the Scottish Orchestra, if detracting him from his wish to compose.

Luckily he was appointed a teacher first in Dulwich and then at St. Paul’s in Hammersmith where he would be director of music, a position he held for the rest of his life. With security of income he was able to devote himself more to composition and a string of works by which he is best known, chief of which is The Planets, appeared. Their success made publishers want to revisit his earlier works and he found the extra work of correcting proofs time-consuming. His later works were more intense and the public found them harder to understand and it is only now, with a greater chance to listen to them, that we can fathom their genius.

His final years were blighted by illnesses which started after falling from the rostrum and hitting his head, he suffered from headaches and sleeplessness. In 1927 Cheltenham gave him his own festival and in 1930 he accepted the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. In 1932 he went to Harvard University to lecture but a severe attack of haemorrhagic gastritis caused him to return home and spent the next eighteen months in and out of clinics and, although In frequent pain, he kept on composing. In May 1934 he had an operation in London died on the 25th.