University of Delaware

Gustav Holst and Mysticism in Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo

Michael A. D'Avino

MUSC696-Advanced Analytical Tactics

Dr. Daniel Stevens

Gustav Holst and Mysticism in Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo

Gustav Holst considered 1930 to be one of his better years in terms of compositional output. It had been a decade since The Planets, his seven movement work for orchestra, gained him notoriety as one of Great Britain’s best composers. Holst, though, never thought of the work as one of his more compositionally mature. His later works were marked by a return to counterpoint, polytonality and even some neoclassicist forms. Pieces such as Egdon Heath and his Choral Fantasia are almost unidentifiable as Holst when compared to his better-known works such as The Planets and his suites for military band. By 1930, Holst found himself in a comfortable place in life where he was not overburdened by commissions or the weight of The Planets success and was instead writing the type of music that he personally wanted to write1.

Hammersmith was not the first of Holst’s compositions to address his interest in mysticism, but it may be the most compositionally mature of his pieces to do so. Holst’s use of polytonality, neoclassical forms and specific intervallic relationships are used to signify the composer’s attempt to reconcile the duality of the real and the mystical. Through the very specific application of various compositional techniques, Holst uses Hammersmith to address his own spirituality and how it effects the world around him, that is, his home in Hammersmith.

Gustav Holst: Career

Coming from a musical family, Gustav Holst was a musician from a very early age, studying violin, piano and trombone as a teenager. While he would spend some of his professional life as a performer-particularly on trombone-it was composition and teaching that became Holst’s main interests. In 1893, he began studying composition at the Royal College of Music and within a few years

1Short, Michael, Gustav Holst: The Man and his Music, (New York, Oxford University Press: 1986) 293 made the acquaintance of Ralph Vaughn Williams, who would become a close friend and major professional influence. In 1905, he took the position of Head of Music at the St. Paul’s School for Girls, which he would hold for the remainder of his life. It was during this time that he began to take more seriously to composing music.

While his reputation began to grow in the time prior to World War I, it was The Planets that really launched him as a well-known composer. While maintaining his position at St. Paul’s, he would also teach at RCM and lecture at various institutions, all the while honing his compositional craft.

Despite the success of The Planets, Holst refused to tailor his music to satisfy mass audiences. Some of his best-regarded pieces today, such as Egdon Heath and Hammersmith were met with fairly lukewarm receptions from audiences looking for a repeat of his wildly popular orchestral suite. Still, Holst remained well-respected in the compositional world, even as his more mature works alienated him from mainstream audiences.

Holst and Mysticism

In the early 1900’s, Holst took an interest in Hindu literature and philosophy, going as far as to study Sanskrit and make his own transcriptions of Sanskrit text2. Throughout much of his work, Holst has made various references to his spiritual side in his music. “Neptune, The Mystic” from The Planets is one of the better known examples and one displays its spiritual connections rather broadly. The wordless women's choir, ethereal orchestration and uncertain, fading ending all give the sense of something otherworldly, beyond the realm of mere men. “Neptune” also features a falling minor third motive that Holst seems to favor in works that deal with spirituality in some sense, such as The Mystic

Trumpeter and The First Choral Symphony3.

2ibid 3Boyer, D.R. “Holst's 'The Hymn of Jesus': An Investigation into Mysticism in Music” The Music Review 36(4) (Cambridge: 1975) 272. Holst’s references to spirituality are in some cases quite involved. The Hymn of Jesus for chorus and orchestra is a setting of a Gnostic text in ancient Greek, in which Holst hardly made a musical gesture that was not in some way representative of something in said text. The use of plainsong and spoken text and dance elements speak to the spiritual nature of the piece. A deeper reading reveals connections between specific words and harmonies while even making motivic connections to other compositions of his. Holst in general was not one to make musical decisions without having a specific reason for them; it is not unreasonable to read beyond the simple notes of his compositions to find deeper meaning than simple form and tonal structures4.

In his analysis of The Hymn of Jesus, D. Royce Boyer points states that Holst expresses mysticism in five ways:

1. The use of plainsong

2. Elements of dance found in the text and connections to ritual

3. Use of spoken words

4. function of Holst's harmonic practices

5. Use of motivic connections from previous works with mystical connotations5

The second, fourth and fifth points are particularly relevant to our discussion of Hammersmith. While

Holst is not depicting a specific dance in his Scherzo, the dance-like rhythms (and even the title of the section) indicate a specific choice to depict the hustle and bustle of the region of Hammersmith as a dance of sorts between the various residents and vendors that crowd the area every day. Given Holst's past connections between dance and ritual in his music, it is not too farflung to imagine the bustle of the crowded square as a ritual of sorts, as everyone filters in in the morning, goes about their business before finding their way back home at night. Holst's harmonic language in Hammersmith will be discussed in greater detail below, but suffice to say that based on his work in Hymn for Jesus, Holst

4ibid 5ibid does not appear to make harmonic decisions on a whim and is very likely looking to make specific connections in Hammersmith. While the music in Hammersmith is not borrowed from any of his other works, one can hear the aforemention falling minor third motive in both Prelude sections of the piece, a move that was no doubt intentional on Holst's part. It is a very specific harmonic move that may sound almost out of place in the context of the piece if one does not make the connection to the motive's appearance in other works.

Boyer points out that Holst's hallmark of mysticism is uncertainty and the unknown. Holst gives the sense that there is a system to his mystical works that cannot necessarily be grasped on a single listen but is made clear once one spends enough time studying such a piece. It is this characteristic that abounds in Hammersmith. From the uncertain tonality of the Prelude to the uncertain time signature of the Scherzo, Holst makes a point of not clearly establishing the fundamentals of the piece while still giving the listener enough information to believe that there is indeed some sort of system to the work.

Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo

In 1930, Holst was commissioned by the BBC to write a piece for military band, something he had not done since he wrote the Second Suite for Band in 1911. Unlike his early band works, this new piece would be intended for a more musically mature group capable of playing more difficult music.

The resulting composition is to this day considered one of the more difficult pieces of music available for band6.

Hammersmith was named for the section of London that Holst lived and worked in for much of his adult life. His intent was to write a piece that conveyed his feelings for the place. While not strictly programmatic in nature, Holst described his inspiration for the piece as follows:

“The only two things I think were in my mind were 1) a district crowded with cockneys which would be

6Zembower, Christian. “Gems of Parallelism: Holst's 'Hammersmith' and Respighi's 'Huntingtower.'” Journal of Band Research 43 (2) (Troy State University Press: 2008) 65. overcrowded if it were not for the everlasting good humour of the people concerned and 2) the

background of the river, that was there before the crowd and will be there presumably long after, and

which goes on its way largely unnoticed and apparently quite unconcerned.”7

The opening prelude of the piece is meant to portray the “unconcerned” Thames River. Holsts uses low brass to play a flowing, unchanging ground bass in F minor through the entirety of the prelude. Against it, he places a languid, stepwise theme in the horns and, later, the upper woodwinds in

E major. While these two keys share two enharmonic tones (Ab/G# and Db/C#), Holst makes no attempt to reconcile the two, letting them simply coexist, seemingly unaware of each other.

The scherzo, on the other hand, tells a completely different story. Starting rather abruptly after the prelude, it opens with a Fugue outlining triads in F major, E minor and F minor, hearkening back to the bitonal elements of the prelude. Similarly, Holst seems to indicate indecision over the time of the piece, alternating frequently between 2/4 and 6/8. Whereas the prelude was made up of two different musical elements that were content to coexist, the scherzo seems to show a struggle between the two, not so much a battle for dominance but rather an attempt at reconciliation and coexistence. One does not have to strain to hear the cockney crowds of Hammersmith, going about their business through the crowded district. Just as quickly as it starts, the scherzo ends, giving way to a short fuguetta that is stylistically reminiscent of the prelude material. A gentler, more scalar melody is introduced in the clarinet and repeated in the flute, oboe and tenor sax. Hints of the Scherzo themes are presented throughout. The section concludes with soft brass chords.

This is followed by a rather sudden and even violent return of the Scherzo. The Scherzo plays out much as it does the first time around except even more frantically: themes are cycled through even more quickly and the fugal sections are not given the time to develop that they are in the first half of the piece. Before long, we are just as suddenly returned to the opening prelude, in which we hear

7Short, Michael, Gustav Holst: The Man and his Music, (New York, Oxford University Press: 1986) 293 references to the melodic material from the scherzo. The piece winds down to the low brass ground bass, leaving us more or less exactly where we began; with the “unnoticed” and “unconcerned” river.

“The Humane and the Mystical” in Hammersmith

In his analysis of Hammersmith, Robert Cantrick considers the idea that the piece could be considered a battle of sorts between the realist and spiritualist sides of man’s experience. This duality of existence, he notes, is one that Holst has considered at length both in his musical compositions and his writings8. Even a cursory hearing of the piece indicates that it is the composition of a man trying to reconcile two different worldviews. Certainly this is most evident in the prelude material that begins and ends the piece. The ground bass in F minor and melody in E major can be read as the humane and mystical sides of life; each existing fully in their own right without one impeding on the other. Still, the existence of two common tones between the two keys imply that Holst wished to indicate some connection between the two (an idea that comes to fuller fruition in the conclusion of the piece). Also present is the falling minor third motive that is mentioned above. Holst seems to be making a clear connection with Hammersmith and other works of his that deal in some way with his mystical side.

The idea of the river-that is, the ground bass in the low brass-itself has mystical connotations.

While Holst did not intend for the piece to be programmatic, his notes on the piece refer to “the background of the river, that was there before the crowd and will be there presumably long after...”9

While not explicitly religious in of itself, Holst indicates that the Thames River is an eternal force of sorts that is always in the backgrounds of the crowded district without interfering directly with it.

The Scherzo immediately shows itself to be of a completely different character from the

8Cantrick, Robert “'Hammersmith' and the Two Worlds of Holst.” Journal of Band Research 12 (2) (Troy State University Press: 1977) 10. 9Short, Michael, Gustav Holst: The Man and his Music, (New York, Oxford University Press: 1986) 293 Prelude. Gone are the gentle, scalar lines, replaced a leaping, staccato fugue theme in the flutes. The fugue theme itself does not set up any clear tonality; it consists of leaping 5ths and 4ths that outline F and E chords without thirds. Note that these are our two two keys from the Prelude, except without the enharmonic tones that bind them together. Already, Holst is abandoning the possible common ground between these two keys as each attempts to assert its own dominance. The fugue theme does briefly settle on a C# before spiraling into a series of 16th notes separated by major and minor seconds. The theme abruptly shifts into 6/8 time and actually centers itself around the C# major. Interestingly, the second fugue entrance in the clarinet is at this point in the key of Db major. This relative consonance is short-lived, as the two voices return to the 16th notes in seconds, separated by a tritone and moving in opposite directions.

Such is the nature of the Scherzo: the various themes and tonalities flirt with consonance only to spin away from each other, unable to compromise on common tonal ground. Even the scoring itself indicates only fleeting consonance between lines: Holst regularly uses non-matching enharmonic tones simultaneously in separate parts, implying that such lines are structurally very different from each other even as they sound together.

The themes from the fugue are cut into pieces and jumbled together until five measures before J where the tension finally seems to reach a head. A shrill tritone is held in the upper voices while the lower and mid-voices provide an ostinato bass in minor 9th leaps. The wide distance in intervals seems to indicate that the two sides of our “argument” are at their furthest point apart from each other. The

Scherzo eventually returns to its alternating major and minor seconds, this time in 8th notes in 2/4. The trumpets and trombones play a fanfare-like figure in a contrasting 6/8 time simultaneously.

The Scherzo comes to an abrupt halt. The Alto Sax mournfully recalls a theme from the Scherzo while the low brass make one last attempt to jumpstart the fugue. We are then given a new melody in solo

Clarinet as the C section begins. Gone are the wild leaps and fast tempo of the Scherzo. Instead we are given a smoother melody in a comfortable register. When the flute enters on the same melody, it is on the same Bb being played by the clarinet. The same is true for the subsequent entrances of the Oboe and Tenor Sax. The insertion of the “Challenge” theme shows that this is not completely new content, but rather an attempt to unify the elements that we have already heard. The brass chords at rehearsal O are not the discordant minor 9ths and tritones that we were left with in the Scherzo, nor are they the two unrelated and unconcerned keys we were given in the Prelude. Rather, we are presented with a new harmonic option: a first inversion C# minor chord that utilizes the shared enharmonic notes from the

Prelude (G# and C#) in a new, collaborative way. The “Compromise Theme” that was first presented by the solo Clarinet is heard in the Cornet and Tuba, two beats and a minor second apart. Again, this is a far cry from the wide intervallic discrepancies that were heard earlier in the piece. For a moment, it seems like Holst has achieved an uneasy compromise between these two disparate sides. The peace, however, does not last.

We are thrown immediately back into the Scherzo with the fugue starting up in the Eb Clarinets.

Themes are presented more rapidly this time around as both sides of our debate dig in and start repeating earlier points. All of the same material is presented again, this time in a somewhat expedited form as each side rehashes points they’ve already made. An augmented iteration of part of the fugue theme(the 6/8 content) returns us to the alternating minor 9th ostinato, this time with running 16th notes in the woodwinds rather than triplet 8th notes. The low brass play an ascending chromatic scale in quarter note triplets against the woodwind 16th notes, crescendoing towards what would seem to be a a climactic clash of some sort. All of the sudden, though, the bottom drops out and we are immediately returned to the Prelude content from the beginning.

The return to the prelude content is sudden, but not random. The soft gong strike on the first bar seems to emphasize the mystical nature of the shift that has just occurred, based on the instruments association with Eastern Mysticism. Themes from both the Prelude and Scherzo are sounded again in solo voices over the bass half notes in F minor. The piccolo, Eb Clarinet and oboe take up a bit of the fugue again, though this time they each enter on the same pitch: F. As in the fuguetta section in the middle of the piece, Holst seems to be setting up some sort of compromise again; some common ground where these two sides of mysticism and spirituality can coexist. The opening theme in the horns returns, though this time, the bass ostinato is in C# minor rather than F minor. It again appears as though Holst has decided on some common ground on which these two sides can meet.This consonance is short-lived, however, and immediately discarded in favor of the bitonality from the opening: F minor in the bass and E Major in the meoldy. The tuba ostinato slowly winds down, first by half, then simply to G and F, and then again once more. The lone G# in the trombone and euphonium- the third in both an F minor and E major chord- is the final sound heard in the piece. After all of the bluster and duels of the piece, Holst does not answer the question that he himself has posed, leaving us with the same uncertainty and duality that the piece started with.

Reviewing the form of the piece, one can imagine that Holst is depicting a struggle between these two ideas of the humane and the mystical. The tranquil, yet unsettled, Prelude indicates two drastically different ideas that co-exist without any particular interaction or interdependence. Holst brings these ideas together in the Scherzo, letting them argue towards some attempt at reconciliation.

The fight is almost violent at times, with wild intervallic leaps, discordant harmonies and even time signatures that disagree with each other. Holst almost achieves an agreement of sorts in the C section.

The melodic lines smooth out with fewer wide leaps in register. A new harmonic suggestion is offered to unify conflicting tonalities. The peace, however, does not last as we are thrown suddenly back into the Scherzo. The argument reaches a frenzied crescendo and then we are abruptly brought back to the

Prelude material. Snippets of the Scherzo themes are stated as muttered complaints as the two sides walk back to their respective corners. We find ourselves back where we started, not with a sense of unification or reconciliation, but merely coexistence and acceptance; agreeing to disagree, so to speak. As intelligent a composer as Holst may have been, he did not-could not-have the answers to resolve a dispute of this magnitude. One gets the impression, though, that the composer was not overly distraught by this. Hammersmith was, afterall, his beloved home, even with its discordant elements and contradictions. It is not the final solution that Holst appears interested, but the discussion that occurs along the way.