Holst - The Perfect Fool (Ballet Suite), Op 39 - (1/2)

The Planets! Merely the mention of the name Gustav Holst brings to mind one work in most people's minds; 'The Planets'. And, indeed, 'The Planets' is a marvel.

However, Holst composed over 200 pieces of beautiful music including Operas, Ballets (this Suite came from Holst's Opera of the same name), Songs, Songs without Words, Choral Works, Symphonies, Chamber Pieces, Choral Hymns...

The Perfect Fool, originally written by Holst as an opera for which Holst also wrote the libretto after his friend, playwright, journalist, poet and lyricist, Clifford Bax, brother of composer Arnold Bax, refused to write it. The opera was poorly received by the public and was quickly forgotten.

But here, in Holst's reduction of the Opera to a Ballet Suite, Holst took the best of the operatic score and created a beautiful work for Orchestra.

All four pieces are rich and full of texture yet minimal enough at just the right times to make the piece come alive for the listener. The story is that of a Wizard who, (in the 1st movement) invokes with trombone, the Spirits of Earth (heard dancing in the 2nd movement); invokes with Viola, the Spirits of Water (heard dancing in the 3rd movement), and, with a climactic unity of the orchestra, the Spirits of Fire (crackling and burning in the 4th movement).

Here are the first and second movements, 'Invocation' (Andante) and 'Dance of Spirits of Earth' (Moderato - Andante), respectively, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with the great Andre Previn at the helm.

Enjoy!

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[fliss69]

There is a wonderful documentary about Holst on BBC4 - youtube wouldn't let me copy the url unfortunately, but its called In The Bleak Mid Winter.

[JasnyJorick]

It's wonderful...

[mensamoo]

4:37 FD Roosevelt??

[mensamoo]

i wish sometimes Gustav holst didnt have the cross to bear of the planet suite. he did so much more, D

[13Orcun]

@christomacin i m happy to read this interesting comment

[mensamoo]

thanks, good to hear this again.

[christomacin]

p.s. I don't think Colin Matthew's Pluto, The Renewer works very well at all as a closer to this piece. Ligeti's Lux Aeterna is the only conceivable continuation of this piece

[christomacin]

I agree about this sounding like The Planets. In fact this section is called Invocation and Spirits of the Earth, isn't it? It is a perfect fit for representing the Earth. I often listen to this starting off with Nielsen's Helios Overture (the Sun), then going through Holst's Planets in this order (Mercury, Venus, *with "Earth" from Perfect Fool, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), and top it off with Ligeti's Lux Aeterna. It works really well, you should try it.

[Sorsha666]

Yay~ Thanks for uploading....we're playing this piece at my orchestra...I play the second violin and even those have freaking terrible riddles...extremely high....but it's so fun to play. I especially like the spirits of water...it's so calming

[tribecatom]

Thanks for uploading. Holst is one of my musical heros!