12 Humbert Wolfe Songs: "Envoi" - Gustav Holst
The Heart Worships - Gustav Holst
The Planets: "Jupiter:Chorale" - Gustav Holst
Hymns: #218 Deo Gracias, Thaxted, Valiant Hearts
This week’s music is centered on the parish of Thaxted and the
music of Gustav Holst (1874-1934). Holst did not write an enormous amount of
music and much of what he wrote has fallen into obscurity today. The four
pieces by Holst that you will hear today are representative of a few of the
different mediums that Holst wrote for. Holst was taken by the piano at an
early age but because of crippling neuritis in his right hand he found
practicing to be too painful and instead took up the trombone. This allowed Holst
a different perspective as a composer because he was able to experience the
inner working of the orchestra.
The prelude is taken from Holst’s Second Suite in F Op. 28 No. 2
for wind band. This Song Without Words:
“I’ll Love my Love” is a short but beautiful movement transcribed today for
organ. Holst also used this piece as one of the songs in his collection of Nine Folk Songs. The beautiful oboe solo
is reproduced well by the organ. For the cornet solo I have chosen a slightly
larger reed stop against a fuller supporting sound. Holst’s interest in British
folk songs can clearly be heard in this modal melody which weaves in and out of
the countermelody played on the light foundation stops of the organ.
The gradual anthem is a beautiful song for soprano and piano taken from Holst’s Op. 48 12 Songs these are settings of the poems of Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940). Wolfe was born in Milan and grew up in Britain. Although Wolfe was one of the most popular writers of the 1920s he is seldom read today. The text of Envoi reads:
When the spark that glittered flakes into ash, and the spirit unfettered is done with flesh,
when all that wonder,
this loveliness of heart lies under the sleepy grass,
and slow are the swift, and
dark the fair, and sweet voices lift,
not on the air,
when the long spell of
dust lies on all that was well bethought upon,
of all that lovely, of all those brief hopes that went
bravely beyond belief,
of life's deep
blazon with love's gold stain passing
all reason doth aught remain?
What need of
answer? Bird chaunting priest, dawn
swings her censer of bloom-white mist,
noon from her shoulder lets her sun-shawl half loose, half hold
her, and drifing fall,
and evening slowly by hill and wood perfects her holy solitude,
unasked, undaunted by love, or what the heart has wanted, and
wanteth not.
Unasked? Say rather that
these will startle tomorrow other hearts with mortal
beauty they had from us, as we inherited that legacy.
Undaunted? Yes, since
death can lend to loveliness only an end
that with the
beginning is one designed, one shape,
one meaning beyond the mind.
This “envoi” serves as a series of explanations for poems that
precede it and also for the questions that the singer is asking. It is a
beautiful commentary that asks and answers a series of questions without actually
presenting definitive answers. Something that I think every good poem is
capable of doing.
The communion anthem is the choral version of Holst’s The Heart Worships originally written
for solo voice and piano. The text for this lovely anthem was written by Alice
Buckton (1867-1944) the writer and social activist responsible for the work of
Chalice Well which contributed to the arts and educational climate of
Glastonbury where her influence continues to be felt. This anthem extols the
virtue of silence in heaven, on earth and within. Something that after the loud
and exhausting music of last Sunday we would all do well to remember.
The postlude is the chorale section of Jupiter from The Planets.
This stately theme has been combined with the poem I Vow to Thee My Country as well as several other texts including
the offertory hymn. This triumphal melody builds and grows, seemingly out of
the silence of the previous anthem into a full crashing climax evoking a celestial
image to end the Sunday after the Ascension.
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