HOLST works previously unpublished

Gustav Holst composed solo songs for voice and piano at various stages of his career, but with an abundance from the late 1890s (towards the end of his student days) into the early 1900s. Richard Capell, writing in The Musical Times in January 1927, mentions that songs by Holst were appearing in the programmes of London recitals early in the 1900s and several early examples were heard in company with the first performances of Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel and The House of Life in 1904. Only a relatively small number of Holst's songs were published and, of those that were, many have been out of print for some time. The Holst Songbook (52 songs in 4 volumes, published in versions for both high and low voice) brings together all the solo songs for the first time and presents a wonderful opportunity for these hitherto undiscovered gems to be performed and appreciated for the first time. A collection of previously unpublished partsongs for mixed voices "THE VOYAGER" is now available and also "CLEAR AND COOL" for choir and orchestra. Also "FOLK SONGS FROM SOMERSET" for orchestra from 1906 and four very early works written when Holst was a teenager - "NEW YEAR CHORUS", "INTRODUCTION & BOLERO" for piano duet, and two small orchestra pieces "COUNTRY DANCE" from the operetta "Lansdown Castle" and an "INTERMEZZO" from 1891.