Beni Mora & Choral Symphony
BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Chorus and Choral Society
Sir Malcolm Sargent conductor
SOMM ARIADNE 5040
This is a valuable and fascinating document of a live broadcast from the Royal Festival Hall in January 1964, and much expertise has been brought to bear in revitalising the historic recording. Sargent is fully convincing, having the measure of two difficult works, and the BBC SO respond well.
He takes a brisk view of Beni Mora, a curious but atmospheric Oriental evocation inspired by a holiday in Algiers, when Holst heard a flute-player repeating a mesmeric little four-note tune for hours on end. From this modest beginning, the composer gradually shaped a three-movement suite.
Two Dances precede a longer depiction of a street of exotic dancing girls, growing from the endlessly repeated flute tune, until the scene slowly fades serenely. Such is Holst’s skill that the reiterated foundations are unobtrusive, but the first critics were sniffily unimpressed, seeming to regard the scenario as an inappropriate Scheherazade without the tunes. There is much to enjoy in Sargent’s lively account, including some fine wind playing: the excellent flautist is presumably Douglas Whittaker.
Holst would soon take the world by storm with The Planets, and there are certainly hints of this masterwork, particularly Mercury and Saturn, in the Choral Symphony. Commissioned for the 1925 Leeds Festival, it sets long passages of Keats, but not as a cycle, although a tenuous theme might be deduced. Holst simply responded to verses that appealed to him. His choral writing is remarkably advanced for its time, particularly the virtuosic Finale, which foreshadows by some 25 years the finale of Britten’s Spring Symphony.
The performers at the première apparently rose well to the challenge, but were much less assured when giving the first London performance a few weeks later. Further highly unfavourable comments, even from colleagues and friends of Holst, resulted in a second Choral Symphony remaining unfinished.
Despite Sargent’s understanding and advocacy, this disc is very much a curate’s egg. The BBC Chorus are also severely tested, sounding opaque and largely uncertain, as if they were behind a curtain. Moreover, even though the first half of the invocatory Prelude consists of slow unison chanting over a meandering accompaniment – an extraordinary choice of texture on the part of Holst – very little of Keats’s extensive and profoundly rich phraseology is at all predictable.
As a result, barely a word may be discerned throughout, with or without the texts (which, thankfully, are provided), although their confidence does improve in some of the faster sections. The major exception to these caveats is Heather Harper on top form: whether in hushed descriptions or radiant affirmations, her solo appearances are the best features of this performance.
Review by Andrew Plant