Customer Reviews

Holst: Orchestral Works

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This magnificent CD reveals that the great British composer Gustav Holst was no one-hit wonder. Holst's peculiar talent for making epic statements in any musical setting and in any musical length is much in evidence in this collection. Featured, in part, are the wonderful 1909-1910 "Beni Mora" suite, an "oriental" exercise in minimalism that renders modern efforts in the same vein beneath consideration; the 23rd-century-sounding 1923 "Fugal Overture," with its astounding orchestration and uniquely overlapping counterpoint; and the 1906-1907 "Somerset Rhapsody," featuring folk-song quotations and composed at the prompting of Cecil Sharp. These are enriching and challenging pieces, very well performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Once again, the Naxos label has provided a superb product at an unbelievably low price. They deserve our business!

The other reviewers here have correctly given praises to David Lloyd-Jones and his excellent English orchestra for their fine, affordable performances of Holst's lesser known orchestral works. Lloyd-Jones is a fine, sensitive conductor who expertly shapes and conducts each piece, eliciting expert sounds and music from the orchestra.

The "Fugal Overture" has some very interesting tone clusters in it. It is a short piece, and it showcases Holst's eerie, fascinating sonorities quite well.

"Egdon Heath," considered by Holst himself to be his finest work, is a dark, brooding piece that haunts the listener. Lloyd-Jones and the orchestra capture these moods perfectly.

My personal favorite on the CD is the "Beni Mora" suite, Holst's brush with orientalism. It sounds somewhat like the orchestral works of Borodin at times. The drone in the last movement is really catchy (Holst heard an Algerian native intone it for over two-and-a-half hours!!).

Tim Hugh plays the "Invocation" with beauty and expression, receiving great support from the orchestra.

If you would like to augment your Holst collection, you should purchase this CD. I would recommend it even at full value!

Holst: Orchestral Works [Naxos 8553696]

A wonderful cd program with Lloyd-Jones conducting a competent orchestra. The choice offers some lesser-known compositions by the man who brought the 20th century with great music, such as the original Suite 'The Planets' and the 'St.Paul's Suite'. To my knowledge, there aren't that many recordings of these works. Thanks to Naxos some fine pieces are made available again to the public.

For the orchestration of a version for two pianos of his 'Planets', Holst (who died in 1934 due to health problems) has had the helping hand of two fellow faculty members at St.Paul's School : Nora Day and Vally Lasker (renown as pianist, arranger and teacher, both have worked closely with the composer). Lasker has been in touch with some of Holst's smaller works as well, and she did collaborate with Ralph Vaughan Williams, among others. Here and there, the influence of English folk tradition is striking : Is it a bequest from the folk song collecting outbursts of the early 20th century---led in England by Cecil Sharp---or a souvenir of the "Field Days" with Vaughan Williams? The folk idiom is particularly obvious in 'Somerset Rhapsody' and the 'Fugal Overture'.

You can almost walk through the soothing pastoral peace of the English countryside and smell the air (around the instruments!) when listening to the small but worthwhile pieces from this cd. The 'Somerset Rhapsody', the bold 'Beni Mora' and the typical beauty of 'Egdon Heath' (which Holst's colleagues and friends have welcomed with much praise) are part of the musical travelogue ; every minute of the program is pleasant---not much complaint about the playing, very good if not excellent on the whole. The orchestral elements were developed meticulously---as it seems to me---in respect to the nuances, phrases and colors of that genuinely charming British music. David Lloyd-Jones is virtually remarkable in his role of conductor. The music exposes a facet of Gustav Holst's musical persona ; it seems analogous to some works by Finzi, Bax or VW. Those orchestral works are also quite different from the Eastern-influenced or more "mystical" compositions (the operatic work 'Savitri', for instance).

Again, this is a very good album albeit not entirely blameless : Richard Hickox on Chandos (CHAN 9270) brings a strong challenge, although i wouldn't venture to say which one is clearly the better. Sir Adrian Boult (on Lyrita, SRCD222) is aptly regarded as a paragon in that specific repertoire. However, considering price versus quality of performance (plus quality of sound), this cd is a laudable bargain, and it inserts a couple of works which were not included on the outputs of Hickox and Boult.

Although many audiophiles have several CDs by Gustav Holst on their shelves, they are likely to be all of the same work, The Planets. But Holst was far from a one-work wonder, and this splendidly recorded CD from Naxos brings together more than an hour's worth of Holst's music that is bound to delight music lovers--and maybe a few audiophiles, too. Some of the cuts feature a bass drum of near-Telarc impact, but none of this music is written for mere sonic effect. Beni Mora, subtitled "Oriental Suite," is especially enjoyable, but the other cuts, particularly the Invocation for Cello and Orchestra, are quite rewarding, too. This is a top-flight CD both musically and sonically, and had I paid three times the Naxos price, I would still have felt as though I got my money's worth.

This is a very welcome and superbly performed and recorded release. A minor warning should be issued, though - those who know Holst exclusively from The Planets might (at least on first hearing) come away somewhat disappointed; in general, this music is subtler and far more austere, although ultimately just as rewarding. That said, I don't think anyone could fail to warm to the evocatively lyrical Somerset rhapsody which receives a scintillating performance here. The orientally inspired Beni Mora suite is less immediately appealing but no less superbly played. Egdon Heath, on the other hand, is by many considered Holst's finest work, subtle and austerely lyrical and reflective. Lloyd-Jones reading with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra is perhaps not quite as sumptuous as the Hickox recording, but the perfomance is still atmospheric and superbly shaped. For the darkly austere Hammersmith prelude and fugue Lloyd-Jones opts for the wind-band version and leads a dynamic and subtly colored reading, although I cannot help feeling that the orchestral version is overall more satisfying. The other two works, the splendid Fugal Overture and the less interesting (world-premiere recording of the) Invocation also receive convincing interpretations, and everything is presented in vivid, transparent and spacious sound. Overall, then, this is a strongly recommended issue, and fully competitive when judged alongside the Hickox issue on Chandos, even when the obvious price advantage is not taken into consideration.