Paulina Voices
Em Marshall-Luck reciter
BBC Concert Orchestra
Leigh O’Hara conductor
EM RECORDS EMR CD090
Fide Et Literis (By Faith and Learning) is the motto of St Paul’s Girl’s School in Hammersmith, and this disc explores music Gustav Holst, their famous teacher, composed for its pupils (Paulinas).
It opens with two familiar works, the St Paul’s and Brook Green Suites, in solid if slightly measured readings: but the chief interest of the disc lies elsewhere. I was surprised to learn that Brook Green originally had a fourth movement – and here it is, a Gavotte, by turns sprightly and stately.
The Seven Choruses from The Alcestis of Euripides were written for a 1920 school production. Mostly strophic settings for chorus with harp and flute, they resemble the Rig Veda settings (if less ambitious and complex) with some of the limpid simplicity of Boughton – who wrote his own very powerful choruses from Alkestis. This is the ‘white marble’ Greece of the Edwardians – poised, cool and grave. Choral passages are interspersed with lines intoned by a reciter – here the powerhouse founder of EM Records, Em Marshall-Luck. She declaims the slightly fustian lines with clarity and vigour, just as the Paulina Voices whole-heartedly sing their parts, with only the very occasional hint of strain.
A happily brief Playground Song written in 1911, to words submitted by pupils, is no worse and perhaps slightly better than most school songs!
Miss Frances Gray, the terrifying-looking High Mistress of St Paul’s, wrote The Vision of Dame Christian, a masque for the anniversary of the school’s founding. This presents a strongly Christian view of the passage through life and death of Everyman (and presumably Woman) and at 26 minutes is a substantial piece, even in this edited form.
A lilting orchestral introduction leads again into a sequence of settings for chorus and reciter: and if Miss Gray’s words are not great poetry they are at least in serviceably lofty prose. I have to say that even with the extra colours of an orchestra the combination of high voices and generally sedate tempi means that a certain sameness eventually sets in – but the music is pleasing, and would be powerfully effective in a full staging, as reviews suggest. In any case any devotee of Holst will gladly seize this chance to hear this dignified and quietly tuneful music. As ever with EM Records the booklet is a model of its kind: and checking the website I was amazed to see just how many pioneering discs the label has now issued! More power to them and may there be many more to come.
Review by Kevin Mandry