Limelight, Clive Paget
4.5 Stars, Editor’s Choice
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… Gustav Holst… spent almost 30 years teaching girls at St Paul’s School in Hammersmith as well as fostering amateur music-making as Director of Music at Morley College in Lambeth. He’s the lynchpin here, represented by a collection of his songs for upper voices and harp, a combination that inspired him throughout his life.
Both the Two Eastern Pictures and the third group of Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda hail from 1911 and were written for the Blackburn Ladies’ Choir (clearly an ambitious outfit). Together they represent another of Holst’s passions, Indian literature, and feature his own adaptations or translations.
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“They highlight the virtues of the 12-strong Corvus Consort under inspirational conductor Freddie Crowley: clean, clear voices, impeccable intonation and a direct, engaged way with the texts. Corvus, founded in 2018, is made up of fresh, flexible young voices, ideal in this repertoire. They perform here alongside harpist Louise Thomson whose faultless technique copes magnificently with a diverse range of moods and styles.”
Free from wobble, in Corvus’ hands Holst’s modal harmonies ring true, their blend generally sitting easy on the ear. The same is true of the composer’s more demanding Rig Veda settings. Hymn to the Dawn is suave and spicy, Hymn to the Waters delightfully sprung, and Hymn of the Travellers thrusting and evocative. His Dirge and Hymeneal, a original conception marrying funeral music (chords borrowed from Saturn) with a joyful wedding chorus sees the disc out in style.
Holst’s daughter Imogen was a talented musician who gave up much of a composing career to promote her father’s work and help Britten running the Aldeburgh Festival. Her cycle for women’s voices and harp, Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow, is a perfect example of what she could achieve….
“Corvus is far fleeter of foot than the Sixteen on a recording released last year, their forces leaner, nimbler and more obviously rooted in the text. Teignmouth is beautifully balmy, Lullaby haunting and ethereal, and Over the Hill and Over the Dale delicately elfin.”
The real find here is An English Day-Book, an imaginative cycle of 11 songs charting an English summer’s day by Elizabeth Poston (1905-1987)…. Harmonies are bold and pungent (think Warlock, perhaps, or Britten), and the harp writing is idiomatic and crafted.
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More recent works come in the form of Olivia Sparkhall’s hypnotic Lux Aeterna and three settings of Julian of Norwich: Judith Weir’s lyrical We Sekyn Here Rest, Gemma McGregor’s Love Was His Meaning, with pealing chimes on harp, and Hilary Campbell’s touching Our Endless Day. Specially commissioned for the album are a pair of absorbingly scrunchy responses to Gustav Holst by Indian composer Shruthi Rajasekar.
“Beautifully recorded in a clean, word-friendly acoustic, and presented in detailed SACD sound, Welcome Joy should appeal to all lovers of English choral music.”
