On Saturday my favourite classical composer Gustav Holst turned 150 and I spent it listening to every single piece of music of his that had ever been recorded, offering my thoughts via twitter as I went. I'd never heard them in order before - indeed there's a few pieces I didn't know had ever been recorded till putting my playlist together last week, and I had such fun I thought I would share it with my AAA readers. After all Holst was, in so many ways, the first hippie, writing anti-war songs about Indian Gods using Sanskrit texts long before George Harrison made it popular while The Moody Blues for one were highly influences by him (Decca should have had them recording The Planets not Dvorak's New World Symphony in 1967!) I've left the messages as I sent them on the spur of the moment but taken the opportunity to add a couple of points I forgot to make on the day and no 79 (which went missing by accident!) This is far from my specialist subject by the way and though I've researched as much as I can there's not much detail about some of the lesser known pieces especially around, so a few errors might be in here. Equally the chronological order is mostly taken from his daughter Imogen's numbering system though where there are gaps I've tried to go with Holst's own fragmented numbering system or gone with the next best guess! I've also skipped pieces that we know Holst wrote but which were either lost or have never been recorded.
Happy birthday Gustav Holst! It's not every day your favourite composer turns 150 so here is a thread of every single composition of his that's been recorded. It's a wild ride, going from English, Welsh and Scottish folk songs to India and off into outer space.🧵
1) Arpeggio (1892) We start with Holst's earliest work, a flowing piano piece written for an informal concert in Oxford when he was all of seventeen. It's flowing feel is closer to Rachmaninov or Liszt. (From: The Complete Piano Music)
2) Duo Concertante For Trombone and Organ (1894) As a child Holst suffered from crippling asthma and was handed a trombone in the hope it would help his breathing. It didn't, but it inspired this weird work, one of the few with trombone as lead instrument.
3) The Autumn Is Old (1895) Holst's first setting of a poem to music, by Thomas Hood, a writer more usually known for his sillier rhymes. This one is quite sombre though and an early piece of several about the changing of seasons and nature.
4) Winter and The Birds (c.1895) What follows on from Autumn but Winter? The first of three Holst pieces with a Wintry title and another poem set to music, this one by Fritz Hart a college friend who was the cymbal player alongside Holst's trombone.
5) Two Dances For Piano Duet (1895) Two very contrasting pieces written for the unfinished 'Ianthe', a children's play by Franz Hart. From the days before Holst's neuritis became too crippling to play a keyboard.
6) Sextet In E Minor (c.1896) The first of Holst's ambitious pieces for the deeply unusual combo of string and woodwind. Not recorded or even performed until 2017 only the 3rd gloomier minor key movement sounds anything like his later style.
7) There's A Voice In The Wind (c.1896) Holst worked a lot with amateur choirs too, with this an early example, abandoned and unloved until as late as 2020. The last few bars are the first truly sublime bits of Holst music.
8) Love Is Enough (c.1896) In his youth Holst was heavily involved in William Morris' socialist movement. This Morris poem isn't political though but a rare religious hymn, on how life is a mixture of awe and pain which Holst turns into counterpoint.
9) Come Away Death (c.1896) Another forgotten piece left unrecorded till 2020 and the start of a fixation of songs about dying. What with his neuritis, lungs and weakened nervous system Holst was clearly a Victorian spoonie.
10) A Love Song (c.1896) Holst met his future wife Isobel while conducting an amateur choir - she was a soprano who worried about his health and took him home for meals. Till now Holst's work had been reserved but this piece spills over with joy.
11) Light Leaves Whisper (1896) A breakthrough - the first piece of Holst's to be played in public after winning a prize for the best English amateur part-song. The text is again by friend and cymbal player Franz Hart. Not recorded till 1994.
12) Not Unto Us O Lord (Psalm 115) (c.1896) Holst wasn't hugely religious but supplemented his income as organist at different churches up and down the Cotswolds and conducting church choirs. A small scale piece climaxes with the cry 'praise the Lord!'
13) A Winter Idyll (1897) By now Holst is in his final year at the Royal College Music and itching to do something big. This 'tone poem' is his breakthrough in finding his own style, albeit a unique combination of Wagner and Arthur Sullivan.
14) The Idea (1897) This was such a discovery I didn't know still existed till putting this thread together, Holst's first work for schools, a two part operetta in Gilbert and Sullivan mould. and unperformed for 120 years!
15) Scherzo For A String Sextet (1897) A very uncharacteristic piece from the days when Holst was still trying to find his own style and having a bash at everything. Chamber music was not his (piano) forte.
16) Five Part Songs (1897) He was on a more sure footing with voices though after his years conducting church choirs. The second 'To Sylvia' is paerticularly lovely.
17) Ormulf's Drapa (1898) Now Host is in Scandinavia, with a setting of Ibsen's 'Vikings At Hegeland'. It's one of the lost gems of this early period only recorded this very year, with some very Holstian moody opening chords.
18) Walt Whitman (1899) Holst's favourite poet, whom he returned to several times. Written as a full symphony but so far only the overture has been recorded. It's a very 'English' pastoral setting of such an American voice.
19) Suite De Ballet In E Flat Major (1899) Some of Holst's greatest pieces were ballet music. This is his first tentative go, very Tchaikovsky influenced. The 3rd movement, with it's dark clashing strings, is the most Holst-like and easily the best.
20) A Cotswolds Symphony (1900) As a penniless student Holst used to walk miles across the English countryside to get to school or work. Holst mixed all his folk song influences into a big pot, while the 2nd movement is a moving elegy to William Morris.
21) Five Part Songs (1900) - Well 3 of them anyway, which are all I can find. 'Dream Tryst' is moody, 'A Spring Song' joyous and Autumn full of fears of the future.
22) Ave Maria (1900) Schubert may have written the more famous arrangement but I've loved Holst's more from the second I heard it, his breakthrough in terms of using eight contrasting voices to conjure up a mood of awe and reverence. Holst wrote this in mourning for his mum, who'd died suddenly when he was only seven - though her name was Clara he clearly identified her with the 'Virgin Mary', as symbolic of maternal love as you could have.
23) Deux Pieces (c.1900) Back to the keyboard now for two contrasting works.'Fancine' is a piece for Holst's aunt Nina,his surrogate mum after losing his own as a small boy,'Lucille' for girlfriend Isobel. Both are pretty and full of love but so different.
24) Landler (c.1900) usually played by two violins and one piano but the only recorded version I've found - this charming home-made one on Youtube - has just the one of both. A bit too Clementi for my tastes.
25) Greeting (c.1900) Another of the more beautiful 'lost' pieces, recorded for the first time as late as 2022. Holst is really fining his lyrical form by now, with beautiful haunting melodies that play with chord progressions like no other composer.
26) Valse Etude (c.1900) More fun with a violin and a piano, perhaps the most anonymous 'your line's busy please hold' chocolate boxy music Holst wrote. Originally written for violin player Marie Hall, who performed it just once.
27) I Love Thee (c.1900) Though penniless and doomed to live apart through a long engagement with no hope of a wedding just yet Gustav and Isobel are very much lovesick. One of Holst'sprettier sweeter pieces.
28) Thou Didst Delight My Eyes (c.1900) More of the same. You don't think of Holst as a composer of romantic love songs but he really had a feel for the genre, mixing Victorian reserve and schoolboy giddiness. The words are from a poem by Robert Bridges.
29) It Was A Lover And His Lass (c.1900) Figuring if he was an English composer he ought to set something by Shakespeare to music Holst chose a line from 'As You Like It'. Only I don't: there are too many hey nonny nos, the bard unworthy of Holst's music.
30) Indra (1903) Holst's dad died inn1901 leaving a small legacy that enabled Gustav and Isobel to get married and to take a long holiday. Re-energised Holst set about his biggest work to date and the first inspired by Indian texts and mysticism some 60 years before The Beatles. Its a truly epic work, a tone poem about a rain God dancing feverishly to defeat a dragon and bring water to his people after a drought. One of his best compositions, with a 'Planets' like contrast between noise+beauty, usually cut for CD but here full.
31) Wind Quintet In A Flat Major (1903) Another obscure piece left unrecorded till 2017 it's one of the few times Holst wrote solely for woodwind. The 1st movement 'Allegro' works best - the rest sounds oddly old-fashioned.
32) King Estmere (c.1903) Zubtitled an 'Old English Ballade' despite the set text being written for a Scandinavian myth and legend, not unlike King Arthur. A tale of weddings, battles and sorcery.
33) The Mystic Trumpeter (1904) Holst returned to his beloved Walt Whitman and his poem 'Leaves Of Grass' for this oft-recorded work, alternately beautiful and screechy. This piece about the trumpeter in Heaven who says when people on Earth should die, it got more attention than Holst had ever had before, picked for a Royal College of Music concert attended by several alumni and described in a music paper as a 'magnificent failure'. which sums it up well.
34) 3 Hymns From The English Hymnal (1904) The most famous of these by far is 'In The Bleak Midwinter' Holst's setting of the poem by Christina Rosetti still one of the most beloved of all Xmas Carols. Holst uses all his experience of writing for cold English wintry sounds here. The second overlooked hymn 'Glory To Glory' isn't as memorable but is still moving, full of awe for God's beauty. I've never heard the third which seems to be unrecorded still.
35) A Song Of The Night (1905) is a mysterious piece, abandoned and unperformed until 1984. A reduced orchestral version includes words by librettist Samuel Palmer but the feel and title are both more like Holst's 'Indian' pieces.
36) In Youth Is Pleasure (c.1905) By now Holst is earning most of his money conducting amateur church choirs. This setting of a poem by Robert Wever is full of the joys of an English Springtime.
37) Now Rest Thee From All Care (c.1905) Not much is known about this pretty part song, which suggests the opposite and looks forward to old age after a life well lived. I can hear a bit of the slower chords of 'Saturn' bringer of old age about this piece.
38) Songs From 'The Princess' (1905) In his early 30s Holst discovered teaching, enjoying the regular routine and income and the chance to connect with impressionable young minds. Described often as a beloved if eccentric teacher some music lessons veered off into discussions of poetry or philosophy instead. Holst's first post was at The James Allen's Girl School where he was so frustrated at the treacly sugary compositions made for little girls to write he vowed to set some music of his own, starting with these pieces by Tennyson about a Princess who shuns all men and starts her own university where young female minds can work in peace. This piece of feminism was written in 1847!
39) Four Old English Carols (1907) Buoyed by the success of 'In The Bleak Midwinter' Holst wrote a second set without the success of the first. 'A Babe Is Born' is bouncy, 'Now Let Us Sing' busy, 'Jesus Thou The Virgin Born' thoughtful and 'The Saviour Of The World Is Born' noisy.
40) Songs For The West (1907) It weas Holst's close friend and walking buddy Ralph Vaughan Williams who encouraged his interest in traditional English folk song, putting him in touch with specialist collector Cecil Sharp. Sharp himself suggested Holst might try his hand at these traditional West Country folk tunes that Sharp had rescued from oblivion. Though a Cotswolder who'd never visited the West Country Holst captures the bleak yet beautiful countryside nicely.
41) A Somerset Rhapsody (1907) The same idea on a grander scale, merging three Cecil Sharp discovered folk tunes 'The Sheep Shearing Song' 'High Germany' (also performed by Pentangle) and 'The Lover's Farewell'. Though not performed till 1910 three years later it became Holst's greatest success so far, with a sell-out London crowd enraptured by the way Holst transported them from the busy capitol to a quaint Somerset village. It's certainly one of the prettier Holst pieces especially the opening and closing haunting refrain.
42) Two Songs Without Words (1907) aka 'Marching Song' and 'Country Song', though the first doesn't sound like what we would call a march and the second isn't what we now think of as country. Pretty but less inventive than the last few folk arrangements.
43) Sita (1906-07) Holst threw everything he had into his first opera, like 'Indra' taken from ancient Indian texts. Rama and Lakshmena battle the demon King Ravana at his island kingdom Lanka, after first building a bridge. Sita is the Earth Goddess and Rama's one time love sent to him by the Gods, apparently captured in Act One before being revealed as a misunderstanding in Act Three as she's merely been in a disguise so clever even her mum doesn't recognise her (can Goddess have mums? This one does!) Host was justly proud of his biggest scale work to date and entered it for a major competition created by music publishers Ricordi. It came joint second, with Holst's own teacher voting against him. Only snippets have ever been recorded - this is the longest I've heard, 22 minutes' worth
44) Two Carols (c.1907) Crushed Holst returned to England and Christmas Carols, with two rather lowkey efforts 'A Welcome Song' and 'Terly Terlew'. The latter is quite an overlooked gem though, an oboe mimicking the bird's cry while a choir sings along.
45) Seven Scottish Airs (1907) Holst had never been to Scotland either and composed this quick medley as a commission on the back of his English folk songs. Critics hated this piece too, branding it 'weird'. They're certainly not the Scottish folk songs you'd expect while a violin mimicking bagpipes is a bit strange, but for the most part this is a lovely medley that real conjures up rolling Highlands hills covered in heather, with a burst of 'Auld Lang Syne' in there for good measure
46) The Heart Worships (1907) Little is known about this piece, a setting of a poem by Alice Mary Buckton, that doesn't seem to have been performed in the composer's lifetime. It sounds far more heartfelt though, a sombre sparse hymn about God's might so different to anything anyone else was writing at the time. Haunting and spare, it's another stepping stone on the way to 'Neptune', albeit sung here with the deep baritone of Michael Lampard in its only recording in 2013.
47) Savitri (1908-09) Holst rallied for his second opera again using an Indian text and breaking every rule going. There's just one act lasting half an hour with no overture, just three singing parts and using only twelve instruments. The libretto comes from the Hindu text the Mahabharata and features Death (a Holst favourite character) taking Satyavan to the underworld and his wife Savitri's increasingly desperate attempts to stop him. He finally gives up after she pleads that her life would be dead without him and wanders off to kill somebody else.
The opening and closing minutes feature Death singing offstage, an effect no other composer would think of and which Holst will put to good use in 'Neptune'.It's Holst's most groundbreaking piece so far but a work of great moments rather than a great work.
48) Choral Hymns From The Rig Veda (1st Group) (1908-09) Of all the Indian texts Holst discovered the Rig Veda was the one that fascinated him most, some of the oldest writing in existence, about the Gods and Goddesses who live in the sky and manipulate us mere mortals. The work was so obscure it had never been translated into English so Holst did it himself, haltingly, in stages. This is the first and roughest group of four texts still treated in much the same way as Holst's Christian music. Only the first 2 have been recorded.
49) Choral Hymns From The Rig Veda (group 2) (1908-09) Thankfully all 3 of these have been recorded and show Holst slowly understanding how Indian music works. The closing 'Funeral Chant' is beautiful in its other-worldliness.
50) O England My Country (1909) The Indian pieces were pioneering but didn't pay the bills whereas English nationalism did. This is a set of verses by G K Menzies (sadly not heard in this piano version) cobbled together for a few quid. Holst hated pompous tales of English empires and parodied this piece and others like it in the cyclical part of Jupiter, turned into the hymn 'I Vow To Thee My Country' after his death by people who didn't understand he was laughing at them.
51) Six Morris Dance Tunes (1910) A rather more inspired attempt to make money as Holst arranges six famous airs for a small amateur orchestra just right for maypole dancing. The tug o'war style show of strength 'Rigs O'Marlow' is best.
52) Choral Hymns From The Rig Veda (3rd Group) (1910) Holst's first unabashed masterpiece, as one of the world's most ancient texts dating back millennia is brought back to life with a haunting harp n female voice choir that one could easily imagine is an alien angel choir singing from Heaven. Nobody used the purity of high notes and young voices like Holst with a quarter hour of pure other-worldly ethereal magic. Critics didn't quite know what to make of something so new.They still don't. George Harrison must have heard it.
53) Second Suite For Symphonic Orchestra, better known by its nickname A Hampshire Suite (1910) brings us back to Earth with a bump as Holst puts his adopted home county on the map. Holst successfully conjures up the hustle and bustle of the county in the Edwardian age and intersperses his own melodylines in between the traditional tunes 'Glorishears' 'Swansea Town' (shouldn't it be 'A Hampshire and Wales' suite?!) 'Claudy Banks' and 'I'll Love My Love'.
54) I'll Love My Love (1910) Holst pulled the most popular piece from 'A Hampshire Suite' out as a standalone song and it's worth including separately as it's one of the most gorgeous things he wrote, full of yearning and longing.
55) Three Folk Tunes (c.1911) A slight step back another self professed 'potboiler' to make a bit of money, a medley of 'Glorishears' sea shanty 'Heback Sheback' and 'Sons Of Levi'.
56) Beni Mora (1911) Holst was often frazzled what with teaching composing and working with choirs and was ordered by Drs to take frequent holidays in the sun. One of these was a trip to Algeria in 1908 based on what Holst could remember of the Algerian folk tunes he heard there. Alternating between joyous dancing and thoughtful quiet passages this is a whole new style for the composer and indeed the world, years before Shostakovich and Stravinsky won plaudits for the same minimalist approach
57) Phantastes Suite (1911) This unusual piano and oboe piece starts off as an early version of 'The Perfect Fool' before heading into a slow mournful melody that's amongst his most gorgeous. It was performed once and the composer hated it so much he withdrew it, until a bunch of Holst fanatics dug out the score and performed it again in 2022. Nobody does minor chords that pull on your heartstrings like Holst.
58) Christmas Day (1911) This is a much more traditional piece all round, written for the choir of Morley College where Holst had now become a part-time teacher. Fittingly this performance comes from Stanford University, named after Holst's own teacher.
59) The Cloud Messenger (1911-13) Holst returned to another Indian text, the Megadutta, in which we follow a cloud, conjured up in a poet's head, as it passes over streets and fields and at one point over the top of a carnival before arriving in the dreams of his sleeping loved one. It's Holst's most ambitious symphonic work so far and one of his personal favourite of all his pieces, though again it's a work of beautiful individual moments rather than a beautiful work per se.
60) Two Eastern Pictures (1911) Subtitled 'Spring' and 'Summer' this is another step towards Neptune as Holst again writes for his beloved female voice choirs. They're both a bit lowkey though, more like Holst's earlier more reserved works.
61) In Praise Of King Olaf (1911) Holst had been commissioned to write and spent a long time working on a piece for Edward VII's London pageant, promptly cancelled when the King died midway through the last movement. Instead Holst got a cameo in his son George V's coronation as something of a consolation prize. This was the piece to be played when King Olaf of Norway turned up, complete with re-enactment of the battle of London Bridge in 1014 (when he helped English King Ethelred the Unready defeat The Vikings). Holst was himself of Scandinavian ancestry but rather than write a Nordic piece instead writes a peculiarly old wordle English one, complete with military fanfares and singing that's almost shouting.
62) Hecuba's Lament (1911) is one of the last of the 'forgotten' Holst pieces, only briefly performed and not recorded onto disc until 2022. The text is from Ancient Greece for a change, Euripides' 'Trojan Woman' , a mournful anti-war plea written after the Battle of Melos in 415 BC. Given the growing feeling in the air in 1911-1912 that another war was inevitable might account for the sombre funeraliac feeling unusual for Holst, as Hecuba pleads with the military not to send any more children to war.
63) Invocation (1911) was written as 'A Song Of The Evening', a companion piece to 'A Song Of the Night' and written especially for the cellist May Mukle who at the time was a much bigger name in classical circles than Holst himself. It's a beautiful piece, one of it's composer's prettiest, especially the opening haunting refrain that sounds positively down in the dumps, before another angelic harp encourages it to lift up its head and try again. An early sign of Holst's depression that would follow him to his death, the very sound of a dark night of the
64) Choral Hymns From The Rig Veda (4th Group) (1912) Having finally cleared all his many commissions Holst and with a little money in the bank Holst returned to what he wanted to write with a final group of the Sanskrit texts that so haunted him. This time the mood is happier, the voices deeper and more Earthly. The opening 'Hymn To Agni' is particularly Holstian, moody and thoughtful, the last a second hymn to Indra the Rain God from his earlier tone poem.
65) Hymn To Dionysius (1913) Though written as an ode to an Ancient Greek God 'Dionysius' is another step towards The Planets with an out of this world ethereal feel, at least until the sudden arrival of some Earthly brass.
66) Two Psalms (1912-13) Specifically psalms 86 and 148, one of humility in the face of God and the other full of praise, both as different as works by the same composer can be. Holst was by now working at his most famous teaching job at St Paul's Girl School and wrote these simpler pieces for them, the first testing their instrumental prowess the second their voices as well as their understanding of minor then major keys.
67) St Paul's Suite (1912-13) Talking of which here's the famous piece teacher wrote for his pupils, designed to test four very different skills and beloved by schools ever since for it's sheer energy, life and joy. The opening 'Jig' is Holst's most uptempo work and I've gone with this version (out of hundreds) because the Jig ends with a fast two-note phrase played at the speed the composer intended (for some reason most conductors play it slow). By turns fun, beautiful, creepy and joyous it feels as if all Human experience is here within these fourteen minutes, ending with a cheeky riff from 'Greensleeves', regarded as one of Holst's greatest works for very good reason.
68) The Swallow Leaves Her Nest (c.1913) A short vocal piece, no doubt written for more pupils, a mournful poem by Thomas Lovell Beddoes about someone finding independence and leaving home perhaps inspired by a then-year old daughter Imogen growing up fast. Christmas. despite being a committed pacifist Holst tries to sing up but was rejected for poor eyesight, neuritis that meant he couldn't hold a gun and his frayed nerves. he would not have made a natural soldier. One of the neglected gems of the Holst canon.
69) A Dirge For Two Veterans (1914) By now it's early 1914 and the stormclouds of WW1 are gathering at speed. Holst took inspiration from his favourite poet Walt Whitman and created one of his most gorgeous pieces, a haunted ghostly choir slow-marching to war to a sombre military beat. It all sounds inevitable and awful and even though not a single shot has been fired yet it already sums up the futility of the 1914-1919 war. It's quite a brave stance to take, too, in a year when everyone was full of nationalistic pride, certain the war would be over by
70) A Vigil Of Pentecost (1914) If this aborted piece sounds familiar then that's because it was recycled as 'Venus', here with words praising God and full of joy even while the piano piece descends downwards into gloom. For my money no piece sums up the war year of 1914 better as everyone talks up a good fight in public then worries during a sleepless night. If Holst had finished this is could have been one of his loveliest pieces even without the link to The Planets.
71) Dirge and Hymeneal (1914) This piece, meanwhile, isa an early draft of Saturn with floaty female voices trying to regain balance over the swaying tick-tocking clock underneath. Another unfinished piece that's beautiful in its own right.
72) The Planets Suite (1914-16) At last, the big one, a seven part symphonic poem scored for one of the biggest orchestras in the history of classical music. So big in fact that no orchestra in war could afford to put it on so this piece was only ever heard as a four-handed piano piece until 1917 when it was immediately a smash hit and made Holst one of the most famous classical composers (something he hated with every bone in his body). Inspired by a holiday with friend Clifford Bax who talked to Holst about his Indian texts and asked if he'd ever heard of astrology (everyone thinks this piece is about astronomy but it very much isn't). Holst became obsessed, casting birth charts for all is friends and family and wrote The Planets about the influence of the stars on Humans down below, borrowing from past works about Gods in the sky. All seven pieces sum up their characteristics so well: Mars the bringer of war is unlike anything else ever made up to 1914, brutal and unrelenting and all the more astonishing for having been composed before war had been declared. Venus, more usually the bringer of love, instead brings peace with as beautiful a melody as you'll ever hear, fragile and healing and exactly what the post war world needed. Mercury The Winged Messenger is the shortest piece but took the longest to come to fruition, all sides of the orchestra doing a sort of Mexican wave passing the melody between them while Holst hides a then-new invention of Morse Code in there too (mercury being the planet of communication). Jupiter the bringer of jollility is the most famous movement, warm and friendly and BIG, that famous hymn stuffed in the middle as a joke about English characteristics, invading countries as a way of saying hello, going round in circles. Saturn the bringer of old age was Holst's own favourite, a rulebreaking piece in awkward time signatures full of hard life lessons and the certainty of death. Uranus the magician adds other-worldly sparkle from the edge of the universe, full of vanishing tricks and melodies that come from nowhere. Then there's Neptune the mystic, my own favourite, as we head into space with another beautiful haunting Holst choir with stage directions to keep singing while walking out to the car park of the concert hall! It sounds so beautiful yet so alien and cold, also unlike anything ever written (except Holst's own rig vedas). In case you're wondering Pluto was only discovered a few years before Holst's death and he was reluctant to add to his work or go through all the fuss and adulation again, though its not stopped composers like Colin Mathews and Leonard Bernstein having a go (both, sadly, are awful). This piece is important enough to be here three times: the first in a crackly recording from 1923 conducted by Holst himself, the second what I consider the definitive recording (out of hundreds) by Georg Solti from 1979 and third in the only means Holst would have heard it for the first three years, for two pianos. Oh and as someone asked about Holst's star sign in relation to The Planets he's on the Virgo side of the Virgo-Libra cusp!
73) Japanese Suite (1915) in the middle of work on The Planets Holst was asked to write a mini ballet for Japanese dancer Michio Ito and eagerly got lost in the folk tunes of a whole new culture he'd never looked into before. The piece comes in six movements, each more lovely than the last as his confidence grew. Holst had never been to Japan either but, just as with outer space, perfectly captures the feel of a country and its traditions.
74) Nunc Dimmittis (1915) Holst also took time out to return to secular music, finished but only played once )(at an Easter Sunday service at Westminster Cathedral) and unpublished in his lifetime (the first performance was organised by daughter Imogen in 1979 who considered it one of her dad's best works). Holst loved early secular music, especially Byrd, but had never felt confident to try anything similar till here. the title translates as 'Now You May Dismiss'. It must have been quite something hearing a piece about asking to die in peace in the middle of a war.
75) This Have I Done For My True Love (1916) Holst's first post-Planets piece couldn't have been more different, a short romantic ode for voices. A Medieval carol that Holst had been given by friend Conrad Noel who figured he's enjoy the unusual chord changes it's one of Holst's most beloved and most recorded choral works. It's very ahead of it's time and almost 1960s in construction - its easy to imagine The Beach Boys singing it if the words about Edwardian ladies were changed to Californian girls.
76) Lullay My Liking (1916) is a similar piece far more obscure but actually far more beautiful. Holst wrote it for a festival in his beloved home village Thaxted and intended as a lullaby to soothe troubled children.
77) Of One That Is So Fair And Bright (1916) After the success of The Planets the family Holst finally had some decent money and Gustav spent more time with Isobel than he had for years on various holidays. Though less passionate than his youthful songs this piece is still every bit as loving, another medieval Carol whose original writer is lost in the mists of time.
78) Bring Us In Good Ale (1916) For a near tee-totaller who found most drink too string Holst still spent a lot of time in English pubs talking. This is an early obscure example of his attempt to capture the mood. Sample lyric 'Bring us in no pig's meat for that will make us bears'. English drunks haven't changed in a hundred years then.
79) Four Songs For Voice and Violin (1916) Another piece from Holst's 'Medieval' period digging out old manuscripts, the author of this poem long forgotten. 'Jeus Sweet' is another song of Christian devotion, 'My Soul Has Naught But Fire and Ice' promises to do God's work, 'I Sing Of A Maiden' a Pentangle-like song about sudden death at a young age and 'My leman Is True' an oddball love song. Holst long admired the English music of this period - the only time England really had any classical music history to speak of - but never quite got the feel right. There are times, however, when the starkness of the soprano voice set against the violin really works, like a worshipper battling with their doubts and being heard and answered by some mystical voice. Just like 'The Mystic Trumpeter' but brass works a bit better for that by and large.
80) Three Festival Choruses (1916) Although to date I've only managed to track down the third 'A Festival Chime'. A pretty but also pretty anonymous Christmas song with sleigh bells it sounds like an attempt to keep up morale during the war.
81) Phantasy Quartet On British Folksongs (1916) Feeling a bit lost after his trip into outer space Holst returned to his beloved folk songs in another obscure piece not heard on record till 2015. It's clearly made for a war-era tiny orchestra and sounds extra small after The Planets.
82) Six Choral Folksongs (1916) By name 'I Sowed The Seeds Of Love' 'There Was A Tree' 'Matthew Mark Luke and John' 'The Song Of The Blacksmith' 'I'll Love My Love' and 'Swansea Town', from the collected folk songs edited by George Barnet Gardiner who died six years before Holst put pen to manuscript paper. Five of them are rather anonymous and forgettable but 'I'll Love My Love' has rightly become regarded as something of a Holst classic, used to pad out many an under-running vinyl or CD. Full of a burning passion missing from the rest it's the vocal version of the most popular part of 'A Hampshire Suite' and sounds just as pretty with words.
83) Diverus and Lazarus (1916) Another Christmas carol, more obscure this one, no doubt arranged to keep the Thaxted choir cheerful over another frugal yuletide spent at war. It's from the Gospel of Luke (as per one of the previous part songs) about a rich man who sends Lazarus back from the dead to warn his family not to covet money the way he once did or they will end up in Hell along with him. Not recorded till 2020.
84) A Dream Of Christmas (1917) Otherwise known as 'The Other Night I Saw A Sight'. from the following Xmas still at war. Though no 'Bleak Midwinter' its one of the more Holstian Carols sounding very like 'This Have I Done For My True Love'.
85) The Hymn Of Jesus (1917)By now it had been two years since 'The Planets' without a large scale work and still most people hadn't heard that outside the St Paul's music room. Holst was depressed, distracted by war and ashamed of not being able to play an active part in it like most of his musician friends. Looking for answers he turned again to Indian scripture but his friendship with so many members of the Christian Church had led to discussions about similarities between religions. Holst was intrigued to hear of the apocrypha, texts that were once part of the Bible but outlawed in the 5th century and their similarities to the Rig Veda. Holst was particularly moved by a passage the evening before the Crucifixion where where Jesus and his disciples were so overcome with joy they sand and danced the evening away. The result was a colossal success, the biggest Holst had had so far, music critic commenting 'if anyone doesn't like it he doesn't like life'. More sombre and cold than most Holst texts, without his usual melodic warmth, it nevertheless like The Planets conjures up a feeling of something bigger than humanity that must have struck a chord in WW1 with some beautiful touches throughout making good use of all the secular music Holst had been writing.
86) Ode To Death (1919) Holst's next move to capitalise on the fame of both The Planets and Hymn of Jesus was to ignore his fame in favour of his starkest, least compromising, oddest work yet. Holst turned again to Walt Whitman and the poem 'When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloomed' where death comes as a blessing to a troubled soul. Naturally everyone assumes this piece was delayed from the war but this is the peak year for the Spanish Flu that killed so many more than the war ever did. As a very sick man his whole life with a rubbish immune system Holst must have wondered if he'd be next. After all the image of death 'serenely arriving' like sleep doesn't sound like a battlefield. Moving but again very sombre and cold. While we're talking about the war this seems a good time to tell one of my favourite Holst stories. An over-zealous boy scout, primed to look out for anyone suspicious reported to the police about a man they saw who kept walking through fields peering through binoculars and humming to himself. He was clearly a spy! A policeman was sent out to arrest the man, who was further incriminated by his German-sounding (but actually Scandinavian) name 'Von Holst. They took him to the police station to interrogate him - where the constable burst into laughter. Holst was their local hero, beloved by the whole town for his work with Church choirs and local festivals and was well known for going on ramble walks while birdwatching.
87) Short Festival De Teum For Chorus and Orchestra (1919) was intended for a Whitsun Church service but instead became a celebration of the end of the war. Teums are a form of music traditionally said to celebrate God and Holst throws the works at this noisy piece played with all the fervour of a child whose been made to sit still for far too long and can now run around.
88) Seven Choruses From The Alcestis Of Euripedes (1920) Holst returns to his favourite Greek scholar in this rare piece written for the St Paul's Girls' School and never professionally recorded. It's plucked harp, high voices, military beat and minor key chord progression make it sound like a Holst sampler album.
89) The Ballad Of Hunting Knowe (c.1920) Another rarity not recorded till it's hundredth anniversary in 2020. Holst hadn't tried anything quite this Medieval since King Olaf and the genre still doesn't quite suit him.
90) The Lure (1921) Some of Holst's best post-Planets music was for ballet. By now Holst's reputation had stretched to America where a Chicago company apparently commissioned this piece then never used it. I'd love to see a performance of it as it sounds a very visual piece, with a moth dancing round a flame, as if hypnotised, sometimes getting too close and being burnt before being called back again, a metaphor for love. Perhaps a ballerina objected to being dressed as a moth?! Holst returns to the warmth of his earlier work, shaking off the war cobwebs with the sort of instrumental combinations no other composer would consider, from bells to brass. Another of his most unfairly neglected pieces with the widest dynamic range of his career from piccolo whispers to thumping drums.
91) The Perfect Fool (1920-22) Holst's next major work was an opera, his only one to be performed at Covent Garden, seemingly deliberately made to kill off the cult surrounding his work. It read like a fairytale, a magician wooing a princess with a love potion and a court jester whose mother tries to make him drink it and when that doesn't work tries it out on the princess. Holst returns to his Gilbert and Sullivan amateur dramatics from early in his career (indeed it sounds like the libretto Sullivan rejected for being a parody of their earlier works leading to their infamous row alongside the bill for a carpet) which was totally the wrong thing for the posh opera goers. It's my favourite of his operas though, alternately powerful and silly. It's the ballet section that has the most appeal though, often recorded (unlike the opera itself) as the wizard conjures up the spirits of earth, wind, fire and water - the astrological elements behind astrology like The Planets. The second dance, to the spirits of water, is my favourite Holst piece of them all, a quivering ball of pure fragile ethereal beauty that feels as if it will float away on a raincloud. Hear the full piece or the water dance which are both in the playlist.
92) The Pageant Of St Martin's In The Fields (1921)Holst was invited to take part in this event by his friend Dick Sheppard the Dean of Canterbury and roped in as many of his friends and students from his various schools and choirs as he could. The music is something of a greatest hits package too ranging from solemn marches, 'I Love My Love', bits and pieces recycled from an earlier work 'Pan's Progress' and the folk tune 'Shepherd's Hey' back again (a gag given the Dean's name perhaps?!)
93) A Fugal Overture (1922) Written as a belated overture to 'The Perfect Fool' if the opera had lasted longer (it didn't) instead it became a standalone piece then added to the following 'Fugal; Concerto'. An unusually busy piece for Holst the first half sounds more like a Great American Songbook piece more Gershwin than Holst before a pizzicato break unlike anything the composer did before or since and a reprise ending thatsounds like musical fireworks.
94) A Fugal Concerto For Flute Oboe and Strings (1922) is an unusual trio to be sure, perhaps written with another school project in mind. It's certainly simpler than most of Holst's music with the instruments chasing each other's tails.
95) Toccata (1924) Holst had a nasty fall at the end of 1923 while conducting, falling off the podium and hitting his head (told you he was a spoonie). Though he continued with the concert he suffered concussion and dizzy spells which, untreated, led to nervous exhaustion. Things got so bad Holst moved out the family home to a holiday cottage for compete rest, unable to even bear the sound of the water pump. He took most of 1924 off, starting writing up again the way he had as a student with solo piano pieces. This jolly piece was inspired by the traditional Northumberland tune 'Newborn Lads' more usually played on pipes than a piano.
95) A Piece For Yvonne (1924) Adine O'Neill was the piano teacher at St Paul's and had been partly responsible for Holst getting his happiest teaching post. Holst became especially close to her daughter Yvonne. Adine covered for him during his convalescence and, after she complained that too many piano pieces were too hard for her 8 year old learn, composed this piece as a thankyou present. Holst's most thoughtful and lyrical of his piano pieces.
96) First Choral Symphony (1923-24) Holst's most ambitious work in years was paused a few times for ill health but just about made the 1925 deadline where it was written for the 1925 Festival of Leeds. Holst chose poet John Keats as his librettist and picked out four suitable pieces of which the 2nd, 'Ode On A Grecian Urn', is the most Holst-like. Written in short bursts between rest periods lazing in the garden Holst compared the music to the flowers, slowly unfolding naturally.The piece is rather languid too, so much so that in the post-Perfect Fool era it was used to bash Holst over the head. 'A melancholy spectacle of a continuous and unrelieved decline' was one of the kinder reviews. Holst loved the experience though and planned to write lots more, though in the end this was the only Choral Symphony he made. Many fans agree with him. I'm not one of them though - there's something oddly distant about this work again, one to admire rather than love with some beautiful inspired moments in between some quite dull passages.
97) At The Boar's Head (1924) Holst's next opera seemed determined to lose even the audience that had stayed faithful after 'The Perfect Fool', being the only opera I know about set in a pub. Holst's recovery house in Thaxted had a number of Shakespeare plays on the shelves and decided if the critics hated his choice of librettists in the past they couldn't say anything about the bard. But they did: reviews of this drunken revelrie in one act, with Falstaff arguing with Prince Hal, were scathing. For someone who didn't really drink the orchestration sounds oddly tipsy, not serious enough for the opera goers of a hundred years ago.
98) Terzetto (1925) was described in a letter to Ralph Vaughan Williams as 'either a new type of chamber music - or waste paper'. An attempt to stretch himself musically by having three of his favourite instruments flute, oboe and viola all playing in different keys it never quite shakes off the mathematical precision needed to slot each instrument into place without Holst's usual natural flowing style. The piece has its moments though, especially the cat-and-mouse second movement.
99) The Evening Watch (1924) was based on the poem 'A Dialogue' by Henry Vaughan and is a rare return to the mysticism of The Planets and Mystic Trumpeter with a nod to Holst's secular Christian work. The 'body' and 'soul' exist as two separate beings talking to each other, each one tugging at the other and overlapping in their demands, each human juggling them both until the point of death. Though another of Holst's detached works it ends with the warmth of the soul soothing the body into its eternal sleep, having watched over it from first breath to last before thanking it for its service and heading to the next life. Dare I say it, this is a very psychedelic druggie song even though LSD hasn't been invented yet and Holst never touched anything stronger than tea.
100) 2 Motets (1925) Despite the name I've only ever been able to track one of them down, 'Sing Me The Men', a piece that went unrecorded till 2016. Holst is still dabbling in counterpoint and different keys, the falsetto voices are like Neptune over the top of At The Boar's Head. It's not the prettiest sound he ever composed.
101) Four Hymns For Songs Of Praise (1925) Equally I've only managed to trace one of these four, the second, 'In This World The isle Of Dreams'. An uncharacteristically straightforward secular work you'd be hard pressed to know this was Holst.
102) Seven Part Songs (1925-26) These however are pure Holst, full of his characteristic touches as he turns his friend and poet laureate Robert Bridges' words into little balls of harmonic melancholic joy despite admitting he didn't understand what half of them meant! . They've become some of Holst's most recorded works, pushing the choirs that sing the in seven different directions, some simple, some highly complex, all touched with the same ethereal beauty of the Rig Veda works (though not quite as inventive). 'Assemble All Ye Maidens' especially is a tour de force, starting as a solo piece and growing in size across twelve epic minutes as a cat and mouse courtship ends in the certainty of marriage (or did in 1926 anyway).
103) The Golden Goose (1926) A return to ballet music, this is the tale of a Princess who cannot laugh, written for a Whitsun festival with a libretto by one of Holst's St Paul's pupils Jane Joseph. It's less flowing than the other ballets, no doubt because it's several dances based on different folk tunes strung together, but there are moments of true beauty here too. Was Holst really commenting on his continuing denial of giving the public another Planets, refusing to try to lay another golden egg? tour de force, starting as a solo piece and growing in size across twelve epic minutes as a cat and mouse courtship ends in the certainty of marriage (or did in 1926 anyway).
104) The Morning Of The Year (1926-27) was a very early commission by the BBC, with Holst the first composer they asked for a 'new' score, They probably weren't expecting a ballet based on pagan fertility rites! Though it reads like 'The Rite Of Spring' this is a very different piece, more melodic and defiantly English. Tenor Steuart Wilson provided the libretto, in which nature basically asks mankind (the headman) and the animals (the Hobbyhorse) to stop attacking each other and live in peace. Everyone starts snogging at the end, which is indeed the prettiest bit.
105) Chrissemas Day In The Morning (1926) It's back to the piano for another festive piece that's loosely based on 'Dame Get Up And Bake Your Pies'. Back in my teenage years when I could actually play I had the sheet music to Holst's piano pieces and this one was just a scrawl of sharps and flats, with more black notes than white, utterly impossible to play.
106) Two Folk Song Fragments (1927) I did, however, manage to play 'O I Hae Seen The Roses Blaw' for my A-level music, choosing it for it's lovely lyrical flow and sudden arrival of quarter notes midway through. I got told it was too simple for a decent mark. Simple! Have you heard it?! For me Holst's prettiest piano piece. Second piece 'The Shoemaker' is livelier and less lovely though equally complex. There's a moment 25 secs in when it sounds as if someone is cleaning their piano rather than playing it.
107) Christ Hath A Garden (1927) Another of Holst's church pieces, Vaughan-Williams considered this one of his friend's greatest triumphs. In truth it's a bit short for that lofty status but it does feature more of that complex purity Holst made his own.
108) Man Born To Toil (1927) is angrier, another poem by Robert Bridges set to a clash of choir and church organ. Was Holst losing faith in his religion? or is it, as per my reading, his frustration at his two different teaching jobs taking up so much of his time with the endless task of separating the two with a complex timetable that didn't leave much time for rest?
109) Eternal Father (1927) is a second piece set to words why Robert bridges with another odd mixture of church organ and choir. The mood is happier this time though, both sides meeting in praise of God. Another of Holst's simpler pieces.
110) The Coming Of Christ (1927) Holst had friends in high places and another Dean of canterbury, George Bell, commissioned this piece from him for another Whitsun service. This time though Holst was setting the text for an entire play by John Masefield. It's a match made in Heaven, given both men's close links to the Church with beliefs on the side of something more magical and mystical (I'm only sad Holst didn't set 'Box Of Delights' alongside it, a very Holstian work if ever there was one). A piece that tries a bit of every past style, including folk songs, piano jigs and shrieking sopranos it uses every trick in the book Holst had learned over the past thirty-five years without adding much that's all that new. The title track makes for a rousing finale however, easily the best of the seven.
111) Egdon Heath (1927) Holst also befriended Thomas Hardy and, following an invite to visit the rugged landscape that inspired the fictional Wessex of his books, was inspired to write this piece about an equally fictional-yet-real place. Subtitled 'A Homage To Thomas Hardy' in anyone else's hands it would be a desperate attempt to cash in on someone else's success, but not Holst. This work, by contrast to the last few, breaks all the rules, a 'tone poem that isn't quite anything in structure with melodies that fizzle out of nowhere and disappear again. It really does conjure up barren moorland in the bleak midwinter, with howling winds and no doubt more than a few ghostly hounds along the way. Holst chose a quote from Hardy for his score: 'A place perfectly in accordance 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'. Holst captures that mood perfectly, but it's not the easiest music to listen to, more one to study.
112) A Moorside Suite (1928) Perhaps the most popular, certainly the most recorded, piece from Holst's last decade was his first music for a brass band. Commissioned by the National Brass Band Festival committee it was another piece first played on the BBC. It's a surprise that it took a one-time professional trombone player so long to write solely for brass, especially as Colliery bands tapped into the core Holst beliefs drummed into him by socialist William Morris: that music was for the masses. Most brass bands were working class, traditionally played (especially in this era) by miners and coal workers and the growing tensions, poor conditions and low pay that led to the General Strike of 1926 must have struck socialist Holst with horror. Especially the ending, with employees forced back to work from starvation with the same pay and hours, their ringleaders and union leaders left without a job. There's something fiercely resolute and unbreakable about the first jolly movement of this piece before giving way to an inner melancholy in the second, to be immediately wiped away by a reprise of where we started played loud and angrily for all to hear, ending on a weary triumphant peal fanfare. Proof of Holst's eclecticism and instinctive understanding of the different roles played by the instruments in an orchestra.
113) Twelve Songs (Holst's title) aka The Dream City (what they were renamed during first performance in Paris and the title most often used on recordings) (1929) is a welcome return to the feel of Holst's youthful Indian works. Though Humbert Wolfe, Holst's next librettist and another good friend, was actually Italian the harps and heavenly high voices are back, as is the sense of wonder and magic and words that feature Gods on high. Though cruder and less inspired than the Rig Veda it'sa joy to hear Holst return to the palette that had once given him so much colour and some of the twelve are lovely indeed. Especially closing piece 'Betelgeuse', the only time Holst ever reached up to the night sky post-Planets, our nearest neighbouring solar system a cold dead world that's somehow purer than Earth, where 'there is nothing that joys or grieves, the unstirred multitude of leaves'. The work ends with God calling humans into infinite dust so that our world, too, is reduced to nothingness like Betelgeuse is now, with the gift of life springing up elsewhere. Despite the links to past glories the cycle was not a success and as far as I know has only been revived once since, for the 'Savitri' CD of 1987.
114) Double Violin Concerto (1930) The start of another decade with the world facing many of the same problems of old left Holst depressed and frazzled, cutting down on his teaching jobs once more and retreating to his Thaxted holiday cottage on Doctor's orders. No piece sums uphis messy overworked mind better than this work,full of comings and goings that intrude out of nowhere every time the piece appears to fall silent. At one point the tune from the twice arranged 'This Have I Done For My True Love' drops into the middle of the piece out of nowhere, like so many thoughts running through Holst's head. By the time of the second movement 'lament' he falls quiet and still, his head calm but now empty. It would be in the Holst tradition to give us a joyous finale that unites the warring factions and brings us peace but not here - the piece closes with 'variations' of the first movement, more squeaky than the first. Music as therapy, important for Holst but less so for his unfortunate listeners.
115) The Wandering Scholar (1929-30) The rest gave Holst another chance to take stock of his career and work out what he still wanted to achieve for himself. His answer was a successful opera. The idea started off well: Holst was inspired to take up his next librettist Helen Waddell thanks to his friend Clifford Bax, who had once so profitably inspired The Planets. the two got on immediately and Holst quickly latched onto the idea of another semi-comic one act opera, so like his early days copying Gilbert and Sullivan, but one with a more adult theme. A farmer's wife is having an affair with a priest and keeps sending her husband out on errors so she can canoodle. A starving wandering scholar after food wanders in and is dismissed as a fool. However he's smart enough to see what's going on and seething at his ill treatment brings the farmer who finds the priest hiding under a table and chases him off before locking his wife in her bedroom. Not the most obvious of pots for an opera, but then nor is the music which keeps changing styles throughout, as if Holst can't bring himself to settle on any one idea. It's not one of his better concepts and didn't bring him the respect he craved though it was the best received of all his operas - as in it got a muted reception rather than a critical pasting.
116) A Choral Fantasia (1930) Holst also wrote a second choral work, barely better received than the first. Holst chose another piece by his friend Robert Bridges 'Ode To Music', written for the anniversary of the death of Purcell, one of Holst's musical heroes. It's hard to say who this piece is like but it's definitely not Purcell, being angular and experimental , designed to capture the unknowing remoteness of a God who created man as a 'wandering spark of fire' to enlighten their cold barren world before abandoning him 'a lonely word of eternal thought echoing ad forgot'. It's another piece with lovely moments that never quite hangs together, again made to admire rather than play on repeat.
117) Hammersmith (1930) It took a surprisingly long time for Holst to out his adopted home town where he spent the majority of his life into music. returning there from his Thaxted recuperation cottage this piece alternates between joy of being home again and fear that the hustle and bustle will tire him out once more. The main melody-line is slow and sluggish, as if Holst is tyring not to over stretch himself, constantly interrupted by blaring trumpets just like car horns. The end sounds positively weary, if not a little drunk.
118) Two Pieces For Piano (1930-32) As he so often did after being away Holst returned to composition with a short piano piece. 'Nocturne' is hypnotic and surreal, another collection of flats and sharps in a piece that won't stand still enough to stick to one key, another sign perhaps of Holst's overworked mind. It's still quite a lovely piece of music though, alternating between quiet beauty and thunderous noise. Good luck anyone who wants to dance to 'Jig' which rather than play around with keys plays around with time signatures. It makes my head spin just listening to it - and no there's not a hope I could ever have played it, my brain just doesn't think this fast.
119) Wassail (1932) Holst hadn't written any Christmas pieces for a few years so celebrated his return to full-time teaching and conducting church choirs with this brief jolly piece celebrating the time of year when strangers turned up with gifts of muddled wine and cider. Here at least Holst sounds very glad to be back home.
120) Twelve Welsh Folk Songs (1930-32) Another commission, another medley of traditional verses, this time from Wales. Alas these are just fragments strung together at speed, as if Holst's heart wasn't really in them, at least on the evidence of the little that's been recorded to date.
121) Capriccio For Jazz Band (1932) By now English audiences had cooled to Holst's music but he still had a strong fanbase in America. He was invited to teach for a term at Harvard amongst multiple concert renditions of his works and found the offer too good to refuse. His family and friends were worried the lengthy trip by boat would be too much for someone with such a weak constitution but Holst found the journey dull rather than strenuous and had more fun during his time in the USA than almost any other in his life. A lot of that joy can be heard in his one and only American commission, not really for a jazz band despite the title and not really in that genre either. But then this piece isn't really like anything else Holst ever did either, the last of his great experiments with a minimalist tone half Copeland, half Gershwin, with intervening moments of pure Holst.
122) Six Choruses (1931-32) Back home in his day job(s) Holst again set a number of texts by his latest friend Helen Waddell to music. These were very different to the bawdiness of 'Wandering Scholar' though, as severe and solemn as anything Holst ever wrote. Once again Holst writes an oddly sober 'Drinking Song', although his 'Love Song' isn't particularly romantic either come to that. As ever with Holst the piece ends in death with 'Before Sleep' where 'men no longer remember the meaning of pain'. but knowledge of God is the last thing in the spirit to die. An unusually difficult listen where you can hear Holst audibly slowing down, desperate to pick up the pace only to fall back into sluggish tempos.
123) Eight Canons (1932) is one of the more obscure Holst works - so obscure I've only ever tracked down three! They're more of the same, tortured and sad with vocal parts that fight each other rather than sing out in unison.
124) O Spiritual Pilgrim (1933) though sounds like a breath of fresh air. Holst is back to doing what he loved, writing for pure female voices who quietly call the listener on to join their spiritual/religious quest with the pure joy of being alive.
125) Brook Green Suite (1933) Holst was by now off sick more days than he was at work but loved his teaching posts too much to formally give them up, while his pupils were too eager to have him. He seems to have written this popular piece by way of an apology for his absence, while also giving his second school post a work of their own designed for smaller hands and younger minds. It's no St Paul's and suffers from the lethargy of much of Holst's final works but the graceful tune is still pretty indeed when it finally bursts into bloom and things end with a sprightly jig just like old times.
126) Lyric Movement (1933) Holst's last finished piece is moving indeed, a haunting piece that could have been written at any time in his career but most sounds like the early days of Rig Vedas and Indian Gods, with a haunting other-worldly feel. There's a weariness too though which keeps pushing the happy melody's head downwards no mater how many times it tries to lift itself up, one which starts off with so much joy but ends up as unfulfilled yearning. There's one last rush of typically Holstlike descending chords before the violin pushes back against the brass trying to smother it and sing out, only to fold in on itself again. A flute tries to move it onwards but the violin can only stumble awkwardly, suddenly hitting all the 'wrong'(or at least very dissonant) notes. The violin tries one last solo with it's dying breath, the orchestra having the last word in farewell. The writer of music this mournful is clearly not long for this world even if Holst has only just turned 59 and it's heartbreaking indeed.
127) Sherzo For An Unfinished Symphony (1934) By now Holst is gravely ill, bedridden with a duodenal ulcer. His doctors were optimistic though, offering him two chances: a minor operation that would cover over the wound as long as he retired early, gave up his teaching composing and walking and took life as easy as he could - or a major operation that would cure the problem in one go but came with added risk. Holst was adamant: life without his favourite thins was no life at all and besides his chances were still good. He certainly wasn't prepared to go yet and started writing a symphony, finishing off the scherzo from his hospital bed the day of his operation. A real rage against the dying of the light, it's his liveliest, noisiest song work for some time, a blurry flurry of notes with the orchestra, usually so united in Holst's hands, pointing in different directions at once. Alas it was as far as he got, the main tune suddenly falling down a hole that opens up beneath it leaving the violin to cry out before the entire orchestra have the final word, with no second movement to move on to. The operation was successful but Holst's weakened heart gave out under the strain and he died two days later. It's fascinating to think where Holst might have gone next, with this piece and with his career. More new discoveries? More trips into outer space? More writing for instruments he'd never tried before? A return to basics with more folk songs from around the world? Alas we shall never know. Even though a short life, however, it was a full and prolific one with one of the most eclectic memorable and original catalogues of them all. Whether his soul is in heaven, with the Indian Gods or in outer space Holst painted them all first with his music and made them his own in life.
