Holst's Debt to Cecil Sharp - I. Holst

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Gustav Holst's Debt to Cecil SharpAuthor(s): Imogen HolstReviewed work(s):Source: Folk Music Journal, Vol. 2, No. 5 (1974), pp. 400-403Published by: English Folk Dance + Song SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4521939 .

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GustavHolst's

Debt

to Cecil

Sharp

IMOGEN

HOLST

WHEN THE TIME

COMES

for the

history

of

English

music

in

the

twentieth century to be

written,

Cecil

Sharp's

name will stand

out

above all

others.

I can

remember

hearing my

father

say this,

with

passionate conviction

in his

voice,

during

a lecture

he

gave

in

the

early nineteen-twenties on

England

and

-her

music .

I

was then

about

fifteen, and I certainly

agreed

with him

but,

at

the same

time,

I

wondered

why he

needed to be so

emphatic

about it:

the folk tunes that

were

at

the centre of

our

lives

seemed

secure

enough

to be

taken for

granted.

It was not until fifteen

years

later, when I was trying

to analyse some of

my

father's

own

music, that

I

began to

understand

his

overwhelming

sense of

personal

gratitude.

It

is

difficult

for

us

to realize

today what

it

must have

felt

like

to

be a

young

English

composer during

the

eighteen-nineties.

Music

meant German

music:

the

operas

of

Wagner

or the

lieder

of

Brahms. My

father once

admitted

to a friend

that

never

having

managed to learn a

foreign

language, songs

always meant

a

peg of

words on which

to

hang

a

tune .

The

possibility

of

finding

an

English song where

the

words and

the music grew

together

had

not

yet occurred to

him.

He knew of the

Elizabethan lyrics

that had appeared in anthologies, but the Lutenist-composers'

tunes

belonging to

them had not yet been

republished.

As

for

folk

songs, he had

been brought

up

in the

belief that

they were

4'either

bad or Irish . Then, in

1903, his whole

musical life was

suddenly

transformed.

This was the

year when Cecil Sharp

collected

his first

Somerset folk

song from

the

gardener

at

Hambridge rectory,

and when

Ralph Vaughan Williams

collected

his firstEssexfolk song from Mr. Pottipherof Ingrave.During the

following year or

two my father greeted

each

newly-discovered

folk tune

as a

revelation. The effect

on his own

song-writing was

instantaneous: from

then

onwards he was

never satisfied until his

tunes

were at

one with the

words .

People have often asked

me

why he

never collected any folk

tunes

himself,

except

on

foreign

holidays in

Algeria

and Sicily.

400



I think the reason must have been lack of free time:

he had

so

much

teaching

to do that

his

only opportunities

for

composing

were at

weekends

and

during

the month

of

August.

But

the

thought

of

collecting

folk

songs

was

obviously

in his

mind,

for

one

of

his

ex-pupils

who

joined

his

singing

classes

in

the

years

before

the 1914 war has told

me that

she remembers him

asking

them all at the end of term to be sure to

tell

him

if

they

heard

any

traditional songs sung by

people

in

country villages

while

they

were

away

on

holiday.

Folk

tunes revolutionized not

only

his

song-writing

but

also

his

instrumental works. His orchestral Somerset

Rhapsody

(1906-7)

is founded on The

Sheep-shearing Song , High

Germany ,

and

The

Lover's Farewell :

an

introductory

note

printed

in

the full score

says

that it was written at

the

request

of

Cecil Sharp to whom it was

dedicated . In this

work,

and in the

two 1906

Songs Without

Words

for

small

orchestra, dedicated to

Vaughan

Williams, my

father

found

his

own authentic musical

language for the first

time.

In

his earliest

arrangementsof

folk

songs for

piano accompani-

ment

he

was sometimes bewildered

by

the

unaccustomed

discipline

of

having

to

keep within the dorian or phrygian or

mixolydian

mode. In

a letter to

Cecil

Sharp1

he asked if it would

matter

if

he

occasionally

mixed the

modes by combining several versions of

the

same

tune,

or

would

this ,

he

added,

be

too much

like

mixing one's

drinks

?

As it

happened,

these

experiments

in

mixingthe modes helped him to find his way out of the thickets of

nineteenth-century chromaticism and

led him to the miracle of

his 1907-8

chamber opera, Savitri. Miracle is

the only word

with which to

describe it, for

it

was

the

first

English chamber

opera

since

the death of Purcell, and it happened

with astonishing

suddenness.

Only a few years

before this he had

been struggling

with

his

first Indian

opera,

a

discarded work

which

he afterwards

referredto as good old Wagnerian bawling , on account of its

lengthy

three

acts, huge

cast, immense

orchestra, and almost

continuous

fortissimo

chromatic sequences.

Savitri, his second

Indian

opera,

is a

complete

contrast

in

every way. It lasts just

half an

hour:

there

are

only three characters,

a small choir

l

See

page

402.

401



offstage, and

a

chamber orchestra

of twelve

players.

The

opening

dialogue for

unaccompanied

voices is

startlingly

original,

and

there

is

a radiance in

the

economy

of the

part-writing.

It

is a

radiance that is

characteristic

of

my

father's

music

at its

best,

and he

himself

knew that

he owed

it not

only

to the

lesson

he

had

learnt

from Purcell's

dramatic recitatives but also

to

the lesson

he

had

learnt

from the

simple directness

of

English

folk

songs.

He

never

grew

out

of folk

tunes ,

for

he

shared

Bartok's

belief

that

they

were

masterpieces

on a small

scale ,

and real

models of the

highest

artistic

perfection .

Folk

tunes

helped

him

in

his

commissioned works

for military band and in his

music

for

amateur choral

societies:

they

also

helped

him

in

such

a

highly

skilled

work as the

Fugal

Concerto, where

the

tune of

If

all

the

world

were paper

suddenly puts

in an

unexpected

appearance

in

the last

movement

and

manages to sound

thoroughly

at

home.

During the

mid-nineteen-twenties,

when

my father was

suffering

from the

depression of

overwork and

illness,

it

was folk music

that

brought

him

a

new lease of

life in

his

Shakespearean

opera,

At the Boar's Head. And owing to this new lease of life he was

afterwards

able to write

some

of

his greatest

music,

during the

few years that

remained to

him.

It

is

no

wonder that

there

was

always such

passionate

con-

viction

in his voice

when

he

spoke of his

debt of

gratitude

to

Cecil

Sharp. What about his

prophecy that Cecil

Sharp's

name

would one

day stand out above

all others in

the

history

of

twentieth-centuryEnglish music? It seems unlikely to be fulfilled

in

any literal sense.

But

then,

what is

musical

history ,

apart

from the

actual

music

that is

being written

and

performed

and

listened

to?

We need only

hear

the

greatest of the

English

works

that

have been

written

during the last

fifty

years to

know that

my

father

was

right

to

feel so

deeply grateful

to Cecil

Sharp, on

his

own

behalf

and on

behalf of his

contemporaries and his

successors. We can recognize the essential truth of his prophecy

every

time

we

hear

an

exciting

new

English

composition. And

we

shall

go

on

recognizing

that

truth, as long as

we

have ears

to

listen

with.

The

letter referred

to on page

401 is now held in the

Vaughan

Williams

Memorial

Library.

t is here

reproduced

n

full

for

the

benefitof

readers.

402



Documents

Holst's Debt to Cecil Sharp - I. Holst