The songs of Holst rarely come our way, and what seem to me the loveliest of them in this selection have never before, I think, come mine. Alan Gibb’s notes tell that the Four Songs, H132 originated in Holst’s entering the church at Thaxted and finding one of his pupils singing quietly to herself while playing the violin. The effect of solo voice and violin, as in Vaughan Williams’s Along the Field, is that of a duet for singer and spirit, almost a monologue where the violin supplements that part of the feelings which goes beyond words. The medieval texts are beautiful in themselves, and Holst’s free responsiveness is entirely apt. So is the pure quality of Susan Gritton’s singing, with its clean ‘take’ of the wider intervals and its faultless intonation, matched admirably by Louisa Fuller’s playing. With the equally sympathetic piano accompaniment of Steuart Bedford, this gifted soprano sings the H69 songs of 1903-04, a delightful group with a particularly delicate and charming setting of “Weep you no more, sad fountains”. The only one I could recall having heard before was “Lovely kind and kindly loving”, which came to mind attached, rather unexpectedly, to the voice of Peter Dawson in a recording from 1923.
The Vedic Hymns are, perhaps naturally enough, less readily congenial. The texts, to the elements and their gods, will appeal to some more mystical natures, as they did to Holst’s. Personally, I like the “Song of the Frogs” but can do without the rest. Again, Bedford is a fine and persuasive accompanist, but Christopher Maltman’s singing, well judged as it is in matters of expression, too often loses real firmness of production (hear him, for instance, on the word “arise” in the first hymn, and on “destroyed”, “throne” and “mercy” in the second).
Philip Langridge is an older singer and his voice has had some hard usage, yet generally he holds the notes steady and, anyway, has developed such an intense and special individuality that idiosyncrasies (the feeling of a congested sinus for instance) are taken on board. The Humbert Wolfe songs (H174) suit as though made for him, and though in fact they were designed for a soprano (Dorothy Silk) they go better with the tenor voice, provided it has a reedy capacity. In the finely orchestrated version (The Dream City, Hyperion, 2/88) by Colin Matthews and sung on record by Patricia Kwella, some of the intimacy is lost along with many of the words. With Wolfe, a virtuoso poet of his time, it is imperative that the words come over clearly, as they do here.'