The Mystic Trumpeter, Op. 18/H71
First Choral Symphony, Op. 41/H 155

This is our third CD devoted to orchestral works by Gustav Holst. The series was inaugurated by Richard Hickox who sadly passed away in 2009 after having completed only Volume 1. Fortunately, Chandos was able to secure the services of its exclusive artist the acclaimed conductor Sir Andrew Davis for the second volume, on which he conducted the BBC Philharmonic in a unique programme of The Planets and two comparative rarities in the concert hall, Japanese Suite and Beni Mora.

Now Sir Andrew turns to The Mystic Trumpeter and the First Choral Symphony, this time conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Grammy-nominated soprano Susan Gritton.

Composed originally in 1904 and revised in 1912, The Mystic Trumpeter received only two performances in Holst’s lifetime, and it was not revived until 1980. Holst based this work on a poem from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. The influence of Hindu thought is clearly present throughout the piece, while musically there are fingerprints of his later style too, particularly in the use of bitonality (two different keys used simultaneously). The ending is calm and beautifully serene, and wholly characteristic of the mature Holst’s ability to do the unexpected.

Holst drafted the First Choral Symphony in 1923, shortly after his largely unsuccessful attempt at grand opera with The Perfect Fool. The mixed reception that the work received was to some extend provoked by his choice of texts. Although all are by Keats, they are still vastly different one from another. Although Holst chose them for their ability to stimulate his musical imagination, the fact that verbally they followed little or no sequence was of no great concern to him. In the texts from Endymion, for example, his exuberant side is given free rein, while Ode on a Grecian Urn reveals another side, one of calm and composure. ‘Fancy’, from Extracts from an Opera, is set as a whirling Scherzo, ‘Folly’s Song’ serving as a contrasting earthbound trio. Holst himself said of this Symphony: ‘I think the work as a whole is the best thing I have written.’

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Recorded in: Fairfield Halls, Croyd 6 and 7 April 2013