Like cousins born of different parents but so similar as to make anyone believe they were siblings, Imogen Holst’s Mass in A minor (1927), only one step removed from the monumental G minor work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is almost a dead ringer for the earlier creation (1921) of her illustrious teacher. The resemblance is more than uncanny, and certainly not coincidental—throughout the Mass there are so many identical rhythmical treatments of the text, imitative devices, undulating chant-like modal melodies, even exact quotes of melodic themes, and so many instances of the same characteristic parallel harmonic voicings Vaughan Williams employed as a distinctive feature of his Mass, even in some cases a reiteration of the exact chord progressions (the conclusion of the Agnus Dei), that as you listen you can’t avoid hearing both works simultaneously, any more than you could ignore those two cousins playing energetically in the next room.
For sure, the Kyrie’s melismatic opening measures, with pseudo-fugal staggered entrances, could only have been inspired by the same passages of Vaughan Williams’ work. The only major differences between the two Masses, otherwise inbred in tone, spirit, texture, thematic material, and harmonic structure, are Holst’s scoring for single choir (as opposed to Vaughan Williams’ double) and the absence of a vocal quartet. What’s the big deal about all this? Only that Holst’s work is exceptionally well written, just original enough to compel serious interest by both experts and amateur choral music lovers, and could stand as a more than satisfactory substitute/replacement for the Vaughan Williams—while only requiring the vocal forces of a single four-part choir. This 20-minute-plus piece is a musically and historically significant addition to the choral repertoire, and an eminently performable one that deserves a published edition (apparently the one used here was prepared from manuscript).
The Holst works on the rest of the program show a composer highly competent and well versed in the styles with which she was surrounded—as a student of Vaughan Williams and as friend, colleague, and amanuensis of Benjamin Britten. Yet she also had her moments of originality—especially evident in the unique scale patterns of Hallo my fancy, whither wilt thou go? and in the challenging yet totally agreeable Three Psalms, set for mixed choir and strings. And if Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow, settings of six Keats poems for female voices and harp, reminds you more than a little bit of Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, well, you know your Britten. Britten actually asked Holst to write the work for the 1951 Aldeburgh Festival. It’s a wonderful set of songs—especially delightful is the buoyant “Over the Hill and over the Dale”—and it deserves to join the standard repertoire of harpists and treble choirs.
Perhaps most intriguing is Holst’s orchestration of Britten’s cantata Rejoice in the Lamb, originally for choir, soloists, and organ. Although I still prefer the original—it’s more a balance question than one of color or texture—if you had never heard the organ setting and you heard this one instead, you would be completely won over by Holst’s intelligent and absolutely “right” choices. To be sure, an intelligent and creative orchestrator can find much help in the organ scoring itself, and Holst does some magical things, especially with the winds in the solo sections—the ideal choice of clarinet in “For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry” and (with bassoon) in “For the flowers are great blessings”, and the choice of oboe in “For I am under the same accusation…” Yes, the orchestra threatens to overwhelm the choir in the climactic point of the latter movement, but the result is affecting and powerful, as much as in the organ version, but brushed with the collective colors of the orchestral instruments.
While you can’t help but be impressed with Holst’s orchestration skills, this disc, with its first-rate performances by the Choir of Clare College, also gives substantial reason to acknowledge Gustav Holst’s daughter as an eminent creative figure in her own right, outside her academic relationship with Vaughan Williams, and her functional, subordinate association with Britten. Aside from whatever derivative characteristics these works display, Holst was a competent and careful musical craftsperson who knew the choral idiom and wrote for it uncompromisingly and inclusively. There’s nothing to fault here regarding the performances, and the sound, from London’s All Hallows’ Church, Gospel Oak (the project overseen by none other than John Rutter as producer, editor, and engineer), is A-1. Essential for choral music collectors.
