Gustav Holst

Review: Interesting and rewarding pieces from the great English composer.

Songlist: If You Love Songs, Lovely Venus, The Fields of Sorrow, David's Lament for Jonathan, O Strong of Heart, Truth of all Truths, Evening on the Moselle, If 'twere the Time of Lillies

7318b | Songbook $7.95 | Unison Unison Voices

Review: This set comprises many of Holst's lesser known choral settings. Her eyes the glow worm lend me and Come to Me are published here for the first time and the others were previously out of print. The selection will offer choirs a varied selection of pieces that will prove both interesting and rewarding. Repertoire well worth exploring.

Songlist: Dream Tryst, Ye Little Birds, Her Eyes the Glow-Worm Lend Thee, Now Is The Month Of Maying, Come to Me

40779b | Songbook $7.50 | SATB

Review: These four early and unperformed part-songs are among a number of vocal works which Imogen Holst edited shortly before her death in 1984. A cappella.

Songlist: O Lady, Leave That Silken Thread, Soft and Gently, The Autumn is Old, Winter and the Birds

5031b | Songbook $11.95 | SATB English Choral Arrangements

Review: This new edition of Holst's beloved settings (from Tennyson's long narrative poem) reveals them to be models of musical economy for the time-starved teacher, as well as gems of pure loveliness. Devices such as antiphonal and echo choirs, repeated sections in parallel major and minor, and well-handled canonic techniques, make each movement a distinctive delight.

8037b | Sheet Music $3.95 | SSAA Female Voice Arrangements Home

Review: This is a welcome reissue of a fine release, including several gems, performed with spirit and more than mere competence by the Holst Singers and Orchestra under Hilary Davan Wetton. The program starts out with the Two Psalms from 1912, scored for choir, string orchestra and organ, fine but not particularly memorable works. The Six Choruses for male voices and string orchestra op. 53 belong to a different league, but these complex pieces aren't exactly easy listening. The Seven Part Songs op. 44 are very fine works as well - they belong to the period of Egdon Heath and more or less to the same style; and they do indeed exhibit many of the same qualities; they really display Holst's ear for sonorities and delicate but interesting textures. At first listening they might come across as a little austere, but closer attention is rewarded by almost shimmering, subtle beauty. The Evening Watch op. 43 also belongs to the same group, but is in the end a less memorable work. The Nunc Dimittis is lovely.

Songlist: Two Psalms, Psalm 86, Good Friday, How Mighty are the Sabbaths, Drinking Song, The Evening Watch, Say Who Is This?, Angel Spirits of Sleep, Sorrow and Joy, Assemble, All Ye Maidens

6165c | 1 CD $11.95 English Choral CDs