Janos Gereben <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>"Savitri" is an interesting mini-opera, less than half an hour in
>length, with three singers and a 12-piece orchestra.  There is also a
>small chorus off-stage, providing a haunting addition to the
>orchestration.  The story is about 3,000 years old, about an Indian
>princess who takes on Death and reclaims her husband from the other
>side.  A great admirer of Wagner, Holst has a Death Announcement scene
>of his own here, a setting from "Die Walkure" right in the middle of a
>reverse-Orpheus story.  The orchestral music is fine - much closer to
>his chamber music and "Choral Fantasia" than to "The Planets" sound -
>but the vocal portion is rather dry and recitative-oriented.

A curious judgement - and quite the reverse of mine, were I to be pushed
to criticise "Savitri".  It is the spare but telling vocal writing, rather
than the still occasionally Wagnerian orchestral support, that is the glory
of Holst's opera and its most striking feature.

Like Vaughan Williams in that later operatic masterpiece, "Riders to
the Sea", Holst's achievement was to set his text simply yet inevitably,
without any of the tired, conventional operatic paraphernalia of arias and
big tunes.  The music rises and falls naturally with the inflection of the
words, creating an incantatory beauty which is utterly haunting and
intensely memorable.

Savitri herself in Holst's version of the story, by the way, is no
"Princess", but a simple woodcutter's wife and would-be mother.  It is
a touching, simple, and universal work, no less deep for its brevity.

I heartily recommend the recording conducted by the composer's daughter,
Imogen, with Janet Baker at Savitri.  The good news is that this has just
been issued on CD for the first time by Decca in their "Great British
Composers" series.  The double album contains many fine performances, not
least Boult's matchless "Egdon Heath" ...  now there's some really good
Holstian orchestration!

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"