A short introduction to the Musical Style of Imogen Holst
Imogen Holst made an enormous contribution to British musical life in many spheres, but little has been known about her true worth as a composer until the recent pulication of the book ‘Imogen Holst – a life in music’. Many unpublished compositions and arrangements have laid dormant since early performances, but study of them has revealed a personal style that has warranted full investigation and commentary. In this short introduction to the music, it is important to stress such points as her natural and inescapable relationship with the English musical establishment, the unavoidable influence of her father's music during her formative years as a composer, the affinity she felt towards folk song, and the correlation between her compositions and other musical activities. Imogen Holst’s development as a composer took a different direction from contemporaries such as Maconchy or Lutyens; whereas Elizabeth Maconchy's technical processes might be matched with those of Bartok, and Lutyens’ to her own brand of serialism, Imogen Holst's music is more a twentieth century recasting of older traditions, not as a neo-classicist but through an historic awareness which had been initiated by her father.
The style of many student works was touched with a soft Romanticism, though later, during the 1940s she adopted a starker approach. European advances did not infiltrate this decidedly English mind to any substantial degree, her preoccupation with English music of the 16th/17th centuries and with folk song resulting in a linear style and a modal outlook. Later advances towards dissonance arise from a peculiarly independent approach to melodic and harmonic intervals.
A full measure of Imogen Holst's worth as a musician can only be understood through study of the music written largely for professional choirs and ensembles, such compositions representing the core of her musical personality. Within this category there are only about thirty titles, choral and instrumental , but these scores are far removed from the folk song arrangements and suites for amateur ensembles; within them can be found the high quality of her work as a true composer. The warmth of her earlier style, as found in student works, can be seen as late as 1940 in the setting of John Donne's In what torn ship so ever I embarke.
Following this, the style submits to a growing starkness during the 1940s where a developing musical vocabulary becomes perceptible in harmonic economy, the preference for quartal as opposed to triadic chording, and the pursual of semitonal dissonance which can be associated with the initial semitone of the Phrygian mode. The Three Psalms (1943) for mixed chorus and string orchestra and Four Songs from Tottel's Miscellany (1944) make stylistic headway; they remain unpublished, but a few published titles for female voices follow, not least Welcome Joy and welcome Sorrow (1950) and the cantata The Sun's Journey (1965) accompanied b small orchestra. The Sun's Journey displays a curious mixture of style: more demanding music for soloists and semi-chorus set against a number of rounds and canons for chorus, devices she had always used as a choir trainer.
But it is not until 1972 that we arrive at perhaps the most testing of all her choral works, 'Hallo my Fancy’, a setting of poetry by William Cleland, written for the Purcell Consort of Voices . Imogen Holst uses her own personal scales in this score, one for each verse, and harmonies develop naturally from a directional pull (contrary motion) into added note chords built on fourths not thirds. Clusters which result from this linear style retain tension until a final resolution, usually to the unison (a common trait).
Chamber music represents a small but significant element of her composition. The music encompasses the usual ensembles such as string trio and quartet, along with some which are less usual such as a trio for flute, viola and bassoon. The viola is further represented with a solo suite and a duo with piano. The recorder also features amongst her chamber works, there being two trios as early as 1943, and her unfinished concerto right at the end of her life.
The fingerprints of Imogen Holst’s style, which became clearer and more personal during the 1940s, are particularly evident within the chamber music, and can be summarised through three principal elements, all of them closely linked: the use of modes and other scales, often juxtaposed in conflict; the significance of the interval of a second; and the establishment of tonal centre (very often E) rather than key.
Works for strings have recently been recorded by Court Lane music, and further stylistic comment accompanies the CD in the sleeve note. This is due for release in February 2008, and includes her most revealing works: the Phantasy Quartet of 1928 which won the Cobbett Prize, the Sonata for Violin and Cello (first known performance Cheltenham, November 2007), the String Trio (1944), The Fall of the Leaf (1963), the Duo of Viola and Piano (1968) and the late String Quintet (1982). Of these, only The Fall of the Leaf, written for solo ‘cello, and the String Quintet are pulished.
Without wishing to overestimate the measure of Imogen Holst’s compositional achievement, a number of these works deserve to be heard and played; at present most of them have only received their first performance. Her musical output went much further than the fine collections of arrangements for which she is already recognised. Composition was the area in which she excelled as a student. Her life took on many tasks essential to the world of English music, but that talent for composition never left her, and it perhaps reached its fruition in the works of the latter period. She spoke little of it, but was heard to remark on the publication of her String Quintet: ‘Ah! A composer at last!’
© Christopher Tinker 2007
