Holst IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER film

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

but I certainly think that the first 15 minutes could have easily been ditched...all those clips of modern performers doing I Vow to Thee my Country was very tedious. I honestly wondered just when Tony Palmer was going to get on with it.

Surely the point was to make us aware of how Holst felt about his perceived misuse of his great tune. Elgar and Rachmaninov became simiularly disillusioned by the constant demands for their most popular melodies.

The inclusion of the "World in Union" arrangement highlighted the pop music world's narrow insistence that everything has to be in 4/4 time.

[Nick Armstrong]

I viewed it in two sittings on consecutive evenings, which was just about right for me. I found a lot of it interesting, not knowing Holst the man at all, but I certainly think that the first 15 minutes could have easily been ditched...all those clips of modern performers doing I Vow to Thee my Country was very tedious. I honestly wondered just when Tony Palmer was going to get on with it. I thought some of the performances shot for the programme were quite good, though I was shocked to see Tamas Vasary looking so old and frail.

Haven't seen the film yet, but Tamas Vasary isn't doing so bad for someone a couple of years off his 80th... he's wiry, rather than frail, I think! He was in London a few weeks back: http://pianosage.blogspot.com/2011/0...sztomania.html not long before a series of Liszt recitals in Hungary including this one with his ballerina wife: http://www.funzine.hu/event-an-eveni...tunyogi-dance/ He has a concert tour of China this autumn!

[MickyD]

EA, yes, I do see the point of the misuse of the tune but still think it went on rather! Caliban, I had no idea that Vasary was so advanced in his years - just goes to show how we keep the image of a young performer from some years back fresh in our minds!

[sinned66]

Firstly, I have only just watched the Holst film as I recorded it. I also have to declare a sort of interest - my late father was born and brought up in Thaxted and always told me that he had been friends with Imogen in his childhood, so these aspects of Holst's story was the main reason for my interest in the film (but I’ve always enjoyed The Planets).

The pre-publicity about Holst's time in Thaxted and his work with Conrad Noel (and his left-wing activities), and his dislike of I Vow To The My Country were presented as 'new' information - I knew of the former information from my father and the latter from the sleeve notes of my Adrian Boult recording of The Planets from the 1970s.

I agree with others comments - the disjointed timeline and the lack of detail of Holst’s life. Then some of Palmer's use of imagery: what relevance were films of Holocaust victims to The Planets? I am sure this is the same footage he used in his film about Gorecki, it's use there was relevant and suitably shocking.

The performances were impressive particularly The Planets, but no mention was made of Holst's own recordings of the work - they may not be the greatest sound quality but they do give in an additional insight.

Though it was good to see a film about Holst, but it did seem it needed editing down.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Though it was good to see a film about Holst, but it did seem it needed editing down.

Possibly, but I for one would rather not lose material at the whim of an editor. I think particularly of the film "The Golden Ring" in which Humphrey Burton had to discard more than half of the film created in the "rough cut". I would dearly love to see that material now.

[Pabmusic]

Didn't Elgar and Holst have any control over the words that were set to their music then? That's what puzzles me.

I know this is late, but I've only recently joined and have been scanning previous posts.

Both Elgar and Holst made the adaptations themselves that they they came to despise. In Elgar's case he produced the song "Land of Hope..." (the one that has the "wider still and wider" words) sometime between the first performance of P & C 1 (October 1901) and June 1902 (the original date for the coronation, which was eventually postponed). Of course, he also did the Coronation Ode, which includes "Land of hope" but with different words - that was clearly the major project, but in both cases the words were by Arthur Benson. The song version was for voice and piano (Boosey & Co. was a renowned publisher of songs and I guess wanted a 'parlour' version of the big hit) and Elgar wrote some new music and incorporated a theme from the Ode as well; Benson wrote new words. Elgar recorded it with orchestral accompaniment in the 1920s, and I think Richard Hickox recorded it in the 1980s. Of course, nowadays we usually hear it sung to the march itself, which is not what Elgar intended at all.

As far as Holst is concerned, Imogen includes "I vow to thee" as no. 148 in her catalogue of her father's works (Faber 1974), saying the manuscript is a unison song with orchestra. The vocal score was published as a hymn ('Thaxted') in Songs of Praise in 1921. She then becomes a little defensive about it, saying he was "so overworked and over-weary that he felt relieved to discover that [the words] 'fitted the tune from Jupiter"!

On the one hand they only had themselves to blame, but I suspect both were dismayed by the prominence given to pieces they thought slight, compared with that given to their major pieces.

[Zimbelstern]

Does anyone know the hymn sung over the closing credits? It was probably being sung by the Taiwanese choir, and I know it's "Take My Voice and Let Me Sing", but where does it appear in his oeuvre?

Does anyone know thevanswer to Uncle Monty's question? The tune in question is turning into a maddening earworm for me, and I can't locate it anywhere. It's subtitled 'take my voice, and let me sing' during the credits, but this, nor the (presumed) first verse of 'take my life, and let it be' offer any help.
Loved the film though, and grateful for the exposure of Psalm 86- marvelously evocative.
Imogene Holst comes across as a real hero- lovely to see her at last after being previously consigned to the spine of a book on musical form.