Holst’s The Cloud Messenger @ Thaxted Parish Church by Vaughan Williams, Parry, H., Holst, Ó (2022/2022), Seoltóir Joseph Fort, Thaxted Parish Church, Thaxted, United Kingdom

The ECO will be playing in the second half of a centre piece concert given by one of the leading university college choirs, King’s College, London at the internationally renowned Thaxted Festival. The concert will celebrate the friendship between Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the connections they both had with Thaxted. Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor is the first Mass composed in a distinctly English manner since the sixteenth century. Written in 1921, it is dedicated to Gustav Holst and his Whitsuntide Singers, who first performed at Thaxted in 1916. Parry’s Songs of Farewell is a set of six choral motets. The pieces were composed between 1916 and 1918 and were among his last compositions before his death. Parry’s choice of texts is thought to reflect a yearning to escape the violence of a world at war, and to find peace in a heavenly realm. The Cloud Messenger is a real choral epic, and this arrangement for chamber ensemble by Joseph Fort shows ‘sensitivity, skill and an evident love for Holst’s visionary, rapturously romantic score.’ Gramophone