What most struck me in Vaughan Williams’s “Gustav Holst: An Essay and a Note” is the equal importance placed on Holst the man and Holst the musician. Vaughan William implies that Holst’s identity as a man very directly influences the quality of his music. Vaughan Williams writes, “But if to live may be summed up in the words ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with they might,’ then Holst has lived to the full; he has learnt his lesson in the hard school of necessity; he has not run away from the battle but has fought and won.”[1] Vaughan Williams then proceeds to discuss key aspects of Holst’s compositional style: his austerity, his interest in ancient Sanskrit texts, his tie to English folk song, his use of modes, and his independent treatment of the voice. Vaughan William’s one criticism of Holst lies in his tendency to at times add too much to the musical texture. The writer explains, “…his very faults are those of commission not of omission.” He continues, “His austerity leads not to dullness or emptiness, but to harmony which is acrid rather than luscious, melody sometimes angular but never indefinite or sugary, orchestration which is brilliant and virile but not cloying.”[2] I found this emphasis on Holst’s austerity particularly interesting as it relates to Vaughan William’s assertions that Holst is a quintessential nationalist composer. I imagine that these claims have somewhat to do with prevalent anti-German sentiments, as Strauss or Mahler were certainly not known for their simplicity.
I also enjoyed thinking a little bit about Holst’s ties with Indian culture. I know from singing Choral Hymns to the Rig Veda-III that Holst studied Sanskrit and wrote his own translations of the Vedic Hymns. It notes in the essay that Holst enjoyed the flexibility that came with interpreting a “mystical” text. Vaughan Williams writes, “…it is not the orientalism, but the mysticism of the Vedic Hymns which attracted Holst, he needed some expression of the mystical point of view less materialized and less systematized than anything to be found in occidental liturgies.”[3] This point reminded me of the Victorian Era’s interest in exoticism. In actuality the Vedic Hymns are just as systematic as any standard Christian text. It is our distance from and subsequent idealization of eastern religion that makes it so mystical, just as it is the distance from impoverished communities that made slumming a phenomenon. When I sang the Choral Hymns, I never once thought this work to be an illumination of Hinduism. I feel now that these pieces are rather a snapshot of Western thought gazing at the East through rose-colored glasses.
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