Buxom and Comely? Music by Gustav Holst - heard by PAUL SARCICH '... music of charm and individuality.'

Another in Chandos' Hickox Legacy series, this disc features digital remasterings of 1996 recordings of three works of Gustav Holst. None could be said to be repertoire pieces, although the titular chamber opera has had something of a revival in recent decades.

The Suite de ballet is from 1899, well before Holst had found his mature style, and might be written off as light music but it does have a little more going for it than that. True, the opening Danse rustique is Sullivanesque at first hearing, the Valse might put one in mind of Glazunov's concert waltzes, the Scène de nuit stands up alongside many other violin romances of the era, and the Carnival mixes influences of German music with Greigish tinges; but the whole is kept from being just another piece of Victoriana by the high level of technical accomplishment and in particular the orchestration, of which Holst was to grow such a master...

GUSTAV HOLST

RICHARD HICKOX

ALAN OPIE

DONALD MAXWELL

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

VOCAL MUSIC

UNITED KINGDOM