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Holst, Coles, Butterworth: Salomon Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins, Cheltenham Town Hall. 2.11.2008 (RJ)


"The most overwhelming event of my life." This was how Gustav Holst described a Festival of his music organised by his home town of Cheltenham back in 1927. If he were to return today he would be even more overwhelmed: his birthplace has become the Holst Birthplace Museum and earlier this year Sir Mark Elder unveiled a statue of him close to Cheltenham Town Hall.

The Salomon Orchestra's concert, entitled Homage to Holst, sought to recreate that "overwhelming event", though not in its entirety. The 1927 Festival had included The Somerset Rhapsody, The Fugal Concerto, The Perfect Fool and The Planets. Homage to Holst left out all but The Planets  included instead works by two of his contemporaries plus Holst's own Invocation for cello and orchestra Op 19, No 2.

The Invocation, composed in 1905, lay forgotten for decades. Fortunately it has found a champion in Julian Lloyd Webber who gave a very personal and expressive account of it. The solo cello begins and ends the work in a meditative vein and fragments of the theme are then taken up by the orchestra. Some of the passages had a strong late Romantic feel - more Elgar than Holst - but the Invocation was beautifully played and deserves to be heard more often.

Butterworth was represented in this concert by his idyllic The Banks of Green Willow based on folk music. Cecil Coles, by contrast, is hardly a household name. He was another talented composer who worked with Holst at Morley College before going off to the First World War to meet the same fate as Butterworth and so many others of that generation.

Holst wrote on him that "his genuine love and talent for music ..... worked wonders at a time when wonder of that sort were badly needed". Such a recommendation clearly inspired conductor  Martyn Brabbins to include Coles' Overture to The Comedy of Errors in the programme. This proved to be an ambitious work of some distinction, full of interesting ideas and imaginative orchestration.

It also served to demonstrate how revolutionary Holst's Suite: The Planets must have sounded at the time it was composed. Mars the Bringer of War still has the power to terrify and Martyn Brabbins' forceful conducting of its dark powerful rhythms was uncompromising. But just as compelling was the depiction of Venus and the quicksilver atmosphere of Mercury.

It was difficult to resist the good-humoured, brassy musical attractions of Jupiter, and the dissonance of Saturn was particularly evocative leading to a serenity of sorts. There were plenty of high jinks in Uranus, while in Neptune the music eventually dissolved into the ether by courtesy of the ladies of Cheltenham Bach Choir.

This was a spellbinding performance made all the more remarkable by the fact that the Salomon, now in its 45th year, is not a professional orchestra. However Martyn Brabbins, currently its president, appeared not to have noticed and drove his musicians hard throughout. But they are obviously used to his demands. In 2003, for instance, he conducted them in the whole Beethoven symphonic cycle in the space of one day, and repeated the feat with all  the Tchaikovsky symphonies the following year.

The Salomon Orchestra may be amateurs, but their playing sounded thoroughly professional. They also brought something extra to the music - a sense of enthusiasm, commitment and adventure that you do not always find in the ranks of professional symphony orchestras. I like to feel Holst would have been overwhelmed by this concert. However, as one who did so much to encourage amateur music making, he would surely have been delighted with the quality and dedication of these fine musicians.

Roger Jones


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