Beni Mora/Somerset Rhapsody/in

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.