Customer Reviews

This Have I Done for My True Love: Partsongs by Gustav Holst

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like others here, I've heard several recordings of many of these pieces, and I've sung several of them. This is, by far, my favorite recording of a number of them.

If I had to select one of the pieces, it would be "I Love My Love." The performance by the Holst Singers is *perfect* -- the singers are so totally in touch with the text and music that I cannot think of anything they could have done differently that would improve it. You can hear the sad desperation in the young girl's voice as she chants the song's title over and over from her cell in Bedlam through the vibrato-less almost "dead" sound of the sopranos. You can just picture her, driven nearly mad by the cruelty of her love's parents. You can hear the young man's passion as he races to rescue her; her quiet disbelief as she searches for the truth. They just don't write 'em like this anymore, and you won't hear a better interpretation of this anywhere else. The tempo is what it needs to be to convey the emotion and message of the text.

I'll be using this as a "reference" recording for this music from now on. Bravo!!!

Well, it seems that some reviewers does not appreciate that CD as mush as I do. Personnaly, I have not heard other interpretations and I ignore all critics based on interpretation. It is useless to do so because that is a question of taste. Think about it: on what can we base ourselves to critic interpretation? There is only an answer: on ther other we heard. Which in particular? The first one. We get used to the first recording we listen to. Thus, any recordings that comes after is simply... not the same. Personnaly, I find this CD quite good, singers are perfect, sound is good and the selection is impeccable. All songs are incredible. A Welcome Song is just so lyric and Lullay My Liking so unforgettable. If I just give 4 stars it is because I cannot assume that ir is the best recording ever since I did not heard other ones (safe for some songs on other Holst's CDs).

I am a huge conniseur of choral music, and this CD is not as bad as those other people have made it out to be! Yes, some of the songs may have been performed differently than I have, or they have performed it, but then again, why is music performed? We all give our own interpretations of music when we conduct. Who are we to say which interpretation is better than another? It is all personal taste. Do not let those two pessamists dissuade you from trying it out. They generally blend well, they have dynamics and emotion, and they sing in tune, so what are they griping about! I've enjoyed it.

This should be *much* better than it is; the singing is less refined here, under Stephen Layton, than the ensemble's older recordings under Hilary Davan Wetton. Much of the repertoire fails to be compelling, too, which is a second strike. "I Love My Love", probably the best and most loved piece here, is sung at a painfully slow pace... Sorry, folks, but this disc just isn't worthwhile.

Contrary to some of the others, I have heard many different recordings of these songs (I bought this CD 3 years ago), and I believe that Mr. Layton and the wonderful Holst Singers have done these short partsongs justice. I've always been a much bigger fan of GH's later works, and the recordings of his last piece for choir, O Spiritual Pilgrim (1932), and one of the Welsh Songs (1930), are just remarkably lush. Most of Holst's later music is very sophisticated and clever and perhaps this can ostracize some of his potential audience. The one downside to this otherwise wonderful CD is the Six Choral Folksongs. Holst was not particularly adventurous in these pleasant arrangements, and I don't think that they make the best closer to such a great survey of Holst's partsong writing.

Terrible cd .Please do not buy it i do not recomend. qulaity is terrible and so is selecto=ion