The English Music Festival

emr CD004: details

EMR CD004

Gustav Holst · THE COMING OF CHRIST · TWO PSALMS · NUNC DIMITTIS etc.
HILARY DAVAN WETTON (cond.) · ROBERT HARDY (reciter)
City of London Choir · The Holst Orchestra
The Chamber Choir of St Paul’s Girls’ School

RELEASED 12 November 2011
EAN 5 060263 500032

The Coming of Christ, by Gustav Holst, was commissioned in 1927 by the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, George Bell, as a setting of a text by John Masefield, words and music together forming a Mystery Play reminiscent of mediaeval religious dramas. Although the work received its première the following year to critical acclaim, it was thereafter abandoned – until its resurrection at The English Music Festival in 2010; and it is here presented in recorded form for the first time.

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS

GUSTAV HOLST (1874–1934) TWO PSALMS, H117 (1912)
1.	Psalm 86
2.	Psalm 148
NUNC DIMITTIS, H127 (1915)
3.	Nunc Dimittis
I LOVE MY LOVE, H136 (1916)
4.	I love my Love
THE COMING OF CHRIST, H170 (1927) WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDING
5.	“I bring the power of God...”
6.	First Song of the Host of Heaven
7.	“O all you host of heaven...”
8.	Song of the Four Angels
9.	“I strengthen you...”
10.	Second Song of the Host of Heaven
11.	First Song of the Kings
12.	“I am King Baltasar the Fierce...”
13.	Second Song of the Kings
14.	“Draw here to a side...”
15.	The Antiphonal
16.	“Hail, little captain...”
17.	The Song of the Coming of Christ