The Three Choirs festival had already been in existence for well over 150 years when Gustav Holst was born in 1874, and this year it marked his 150th anniversary with a rare performance of his choral ode The Cloud Messenger. In the composer’s own translation of an ancient Sanskrit poem, a water spirit exiled from his homeland implores a passing cloud to carry a message of love to his wife in the faraway Himalayas. Tarry not! is the refrain, but Holst himself definitely tarried too long in his chorus’s perorations. The Festival Voices acquitted themselves admirably under conductor Geraint Bowen, with the Philharmonia underlining the expressive beauty of the orchestral interludes with their Wagnerian inflections, but it was the gorgeous mezzo and perfect articulation of Beth Taylor, as the voice of the pining wife, that registered most strongly.
Nathan James Dearden’s new work, Messages, commissioned to match Holst’s forces, set moving texts written to speak out and inspire hope. All were simply and atmospherically set and here too, the power of Taylor’s solos carried wonderfully in the cathedral acoustic.
