 | This article includes a list of general references, but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(April 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
A Choral Fantasia, Op. 51, is a work Gustav Holst composed in 1930, setting a selection of verses from Robert Bridges' Ode to Music. Featuring a concertante organ part, A Choral Fantasia also involves a soprano soloist, chorus, string orchestra, brass and percussion.
The work was written in 1930 for the Three Choirs Festival by request of organist Herbert Sumsion, who wanted a work involving a concertante organ part. [1] Holst originally conceived the piece as an Organ Concerto but later changed the concept and incorporated the poem Ode to Music by his friend Robert Bridges, originally written for the Purcell bicentenary celebrations in 1895. Bridges' poem is a requiem of sorts for all past artists. The finished work is scored for the unusual forces of organ, brass, percussion and strings with chorus and solo soprano. The Choral Fantasia was first performed in 1931 at the Three Choirs festival in Gloucester Cathedral with Dorothy Silk (Holst's favorite soprano, who had premiered his Choral Symphony six years earlier) singing the solo part, and Holst conducting. The work was first performed in the United States on May 19, 1932, at Ann Arbor, Michigan's annual May Festival at Hill Auditorium; the composer conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the University of Michigan's University Choral Union, and soprano Helen Van Loon.
The Fantasia opens with a colossal fortissimo prelude for organ in the phrygian mode leading to a chord – causing one reviewer in The Observer to comment, in a spirit of an all too prevalent parochialism, that "when Holst begins his new Choral Fantasia on a six four of G and a C♯ below that, with an air of take it or leave it, one is inclined to leave it" – which introduces the soprano ("Man born of desire, cometh out of the night") over almost inaudible organ line. A chromatic fugato section bearing the otherworldly bleakness of Egdon Heath and Saturn follows before trumpets, trombones and timpani rise menacingly in 5
4 introducing an important, typically Holstian, ostinato figure. The chorus enters, hymnlike, in 7
4 with the words "Rejoice, ye dead where ere your spirits dwell" to diatonic brass accompaniment. This leads to a climax with a reprise of the opening organ prelude. The ensuing music, really a reprise of the fugato section, travels through some unexpected harmonic procedures and dissonances but a brief poignant section for strings leads to the return of the soprano ("Rejoice, ye dead") over the fading string accompaniment ending the work on a note of resignation.
| Opera | |
|---|---|
| Orchestral works | |
| Concert/brass band pieces | |
| Choral music | |
| Film score | |
| Named for Holst | |
| Related articles | |
Authority control  |
|
|---|
 | This article about a classical composition is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson, AO, CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.
Alun Hoddinott CBE was a Welsh composer of classical music, one of the first to receive international recognition.
Patrick Hawes is a British composer, conductor, organist and pianist.
Alan Ridout was a British composer and teacher.
William James Mathias CBE was a Welsh composer noted for choral works.
Václav Nelhýbel was a Czech American composer, mainly of works for student performers.
Ian Parrott was a prolific Anglo-Welsh composer and writer on music. His distinctions included the first prize of the Royal Philharmonic Society for his symphonic poem Luxor, and commissions by the BBC and Yale University, and for many leading British musicians. In 1958 his cor anglais concerto was first performed at Cheltenham Festival, and in 1963 his cello concerto was given by William Pleeth and the Hallé Orchestra – both concertos were conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.
Miloslav Kabeláč was a prominent Czech composer and conductor. Miloslav Kabeláč belongs to the foremost Czech symphonists, whose work is sometimes compared with Antonín Dvořák's and Bohuslav Martinů's. In the communist period Kabeláč's work found itself on the periphery of official attention and was performed only sporadically and in a limited choice of compositions.
Patrick Larley is a British composer.
David Wynne was a prolific Welsh composer, who taught for many years at Cardiff University and wrote much of his best-known music in retirement.
Jonathan Willcocks is an English composer and conductor.
Donald Henry Kay AM is an Australian classical composer.
The Choral Symphony is a work by Gustav Holst for soprano soloist, chorus, and orchestra in a setting of verses by John Keats. Written in 1923–24, it was premiered in Leeds Town Hall on October 7, 1925, conducted by Albert Coates with Dorothy Silk as soloist. The same performers gave the work's second performance three weeks later in Queen's Hall, London. The work is sometimes known as the First Choral Symphony, although a planned 'second Choral Symphony' never progressed beyond some uncompleted sketches.
Gary Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002. He currently teaches on the music faculty at the University of Toronto.
Andrew Perkins is a New Zealand composer, choral conductor and teacher. In 1985, he graduated from Auckland University with a master's degree in Music, and in 2013 he graduated from Melbourne University with a Ph.D. degree in music composition. Andrew has had a number of works recorded and performed internationally.
Andreas Makris was a Greek-American composer and violinist, born in Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece, on March 7, 1930. He was a Composer-in-Residence for many years at the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, working with conductors such as Howard Mitchell, Mstislav Rostropovich, Antal Dorati, and Leonard Slatkin. He composed around 100 works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, including the Aegean Festival Overture, which, transcribed for concert band by Major Albert Bader of the USAF Band, became a popular piece with US bands. Grants and awards he received include the Damroch Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Grant, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Award, ASCAP Award, the Fulbright Scholarship, and citations from the Greek Government.
Aleksander Robert Szeligowski was a Polish composer, conductor, organist and pedagogue. He studied in Poznań and Warsaw, later working as assistant conductor for the Poznań Philharmonic. Son of Tadeusz Szeligowski, he is the author of numerous compositions for piano, female and mixed choirs and others.
Romuald Twardowski is a Polish composer.
