Imogen Holst

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy two.

Speaker 20:12

Desert Island Discs

Speaker 20:31

As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:36

This week our castaway is a musician.

Presenter0:38

Conductor, author, and musical editor, Imogen Holst.

Presenter0:43

Imogen, could you endure loneliness?

Imogen Holst0:45

I'd have a shot at it, because I enjoy living alone. I've always lived alone, except when I've been teaching in a school or somewhere.

Imogen Holst0:53

But of course the real joy of living alone is that one enjoys having one's friends when one gets a chance of them. Even committee meetings become like parties.

Presenter1:04

You listen to records a lot.

Imogen Holst1:06

No, I haven't even got a grammar phone. But of course I do listen for my education. I listen to the recordings I've made myself, which is always painful, always instructive. But I couldn't ever think of listening as a relaxation.

Presenter1:23

What would you want music to do for you on a desert island?

Imogen Holst1:26

Well, I'd rather er oh, this does sound high, Brow Roy, but I'd much rather think it, if I weren't allowed to take miniature scores of my favourite works.

Imogen Holst1:37

I'd try going through the music that I like very much in my mind and imagining I'd got the world's best choir and orchestra, or whatever it might be.

Imogen Holst1:47

And doing it from memory.

Imogen Holst1:49

I'd rather have.

Imogen Holst1:51

Wait, Raw.

Presenter1:52

I'm afraid you're stuck with records, and and what's the first one you've chosen?

Imogen Holst1:57

I know I'm stuck with records, and this particular first choice is one that I adore listening to.

Imogen Holst2:04

For sheer pleasure.

Imogen Holst2:05

It's The Rondo from Purcell's Fairy Queen.

Presenter3:08

The rondeau from Purcell's The Fairy Queen, the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Britton. Let's go on to your second disc. What's that?

Imogen Holst3:17

That's a folk song, The Spring of Time, and it's sung by one of the great traditional singers, Joseph Taylor. Percy Granger, oh, ages ago, nineteen eight, I think it was collected it on an old phonograph and turned it into a record later, because of course you get a lot of background s noises. But the singing is superb.

Imogen Holst3:39

It's it's something that

Imogen Holst3:41

One may never hear again.

Speaker 43:44

Once I had a speak of time, It prospered by life and by day, Till a false young came a court into me, And it stole all this time away.

Speaker 44:07

Time it is a precious thing, And time it will grow warm.

Speaker 44:15

And time it would bring all things to an end. I'm sure my time draw on

Presenter4:27

The Sprig of Time, a Lincolnshire folk song recorded in nineteen hundred and eight by Joseph Taylor.

Presenter4:34

You come from several generations of musicians, don't you?

Imogen Holst4:38

Yes, it goes back to my great

Imogen Holst4:41

Great grandfather. I'm the fifth. and they came from Riga in those days.

Presenter4:46

Your father, of course, was the composer Gustav Holz. Did he start you on a musical training very early? Did he put you to the piano, or did you go to the piano very early?

Imogen Holst4:56

Well, neither of those things was the first. I began by dancing to what he played for me, and they tell me that I danced before I could walk.

Imogen Holst5:05

It was the thing that mattered most to me in life for a great many years, really, and even now if I'm learning a new bit of music that's difficult.

Imogen Holst5:13

I begin to learn the phrasing by dancing it.

Imogen Holst5:16

Then by the time I was about four, he um taught me folk songs.

Imogen Holst5:21

to sing and we used to play duets on the piano. He'd teach me tunes to play on the black notes and I'd sit on his lap.

Imogen Holst5:29

and then he'd play very exciting things with a hand either side of me, and I was so young that I thought I was doing it all, you know.

Presenter5:36

Where did you live?

Imogen Holst5:37

We lived in Barnes in a very beautiful old house on the river. There's a there's a plaque up saying that he lived there from nineteen

Presenter5:43

From now on.

Imogen Holst5:45

eight to thirteen.

Presenter5:46

Of course, for many years he was in charge of music at St. Paul's Girls' School, so this was a handy place for him to live.

Imogen Holst5:50

Oh yeah.

Imogen Holst5:51

Yeah.

Presenter5:52

You went to Saint Paul's, of course?

Imogen Holst5:53

I did, yes, and I enjoyed the the Crown Orchestra as much as anything.

Imogen Holst5:59

But I didn't try and keep up with the others in in the rest of the lessons. I was really not very brighter.

Imogen Holst6:06

I didn't learn any foreign languages till I was twenty nine.

Presenter6:10

And then you went on to the Royal College of Music. There you won a travelling scholarship. How did you use it?

Imogen Holst6:16

I went wherever I liked and did whatever I liked. The pound was a pound.

Imogen Holst6:22

I was given a hundred pounds for six months, and then another fifty.

Imogen Holst6:26

And I started in Scandinavia and worked my way down to Sicily, going to and fro, Budapest and all over the place, um, living pretty rough.

Imogen Holst6:36

and getting hungry very often. I had six weeks in the winter when I was really very hungry. I used to pray when I had a letter of

Imogen Holst6:44

introduction to a musician. They'd invite me at mealtimes and of course they never did or just a cup of tea.

Imogen Holst6:50

But it was very exciting. One could queue up for two hours for a standing place.

Imogen Holst6:56

in the top gallery of Fienna Opera House.

Speaker 46:59

Yeah.

Presenter6:59

There we go.

Imogen Holst7:00

and have a ticket for ninepence for it.

Presenter7:03

And then when you came back

Presenter7:05

You worked for the English Folk Dance and Song Society, didn't you?

Imogen Holst7:08

Part of the time, yes. I had to try and earn my living as well as I could. I'd been meant to be a pianist, but that didn't work.

Imogen Holst7:14

And I had passion, and still have, for folk music.

Imogen Holst7:19

and it was one of the ways I used to arrange things for brass band and military band.

Presenter7:23

You are one of the first women to conduct bras in military bands.

Imogen Holst7:26

So they say. Um I don't think many of them did in those days, but it's becoming much more popular now.

Presenter7:32

Mm-hmm. Let's have record number three.

Imogen Holst7:35

It's change ringing on eight bells. I'm very keen on bell ringing. I don't do it myself, but I like listening. I listen to our own orborough ringers every Tuesday practice. And this is a Suffolk.

Imogen Holst7:48

team of ringers. They come from Debenham.

Imogen Holst7:52

and they're doing just a bit of the Bristol Surprise Major.

Imogen Holst8:43

It's awful to have just a little of it like that. Of course they go on for ages, and there are infinite possibilities, or they seem infinite.

Imogen Holst8:50

of the changing of those eight bells.

Imogen Holst8:54

One of the reasons that if I were on your desert island I should like to have that.

Imogen Holst8:59

would be to try out

Imogen Holst9:01

working out my own changes. I think if there were a large expanse of sand one could take a stick.

Imogen Holst9:08

and mark out patterns and try it out and you know, it would keep you happy for years if necessary.

Presenter9:13

Although you're not a ringer, you are in fact an honorary member of the Suffolk Guild of Ringers, aren't you?

Imogen Holst9:19

Yes, I'm immensely proud of it, and if this were a T V programme I should have my badge on.

Presenter9:27

Now going back to your career, when the war came along, you were one of the founder members of the Ards Council.

Imogen Holst9:32

That's not absolutely accurate, Roy. What happened was there were six of us. Wolford Davis said we'd got to be missionary minded spinsters,'cause they hadn't much money to pay us and we started an experiment in taking music all over England.

Imogen Holst9:49

which afterwards grew into the Arts Council.

Presenter9:53

And you started the music department at Dartington Hall, in Devon.

Imogen Holst9:57

I started teaching students.

Imogen Holst10:01

to be future teachers of music in rural districts, teaching grown-ups as well.

Presenter10:07

Nice.

Imogen Holst10:07

Children.

Presenter10:08

How long did you stay at Dotty?

Imogen Holst10:09

Ten years.

Presenter10:10

And then you went to India.

Imogen Holst10:12

Yes, that was a bit of Dartington. I was very lucky, because it was through the head of Dartington, Leonard Elmhurst, who had once, when he was a young man, been secretary to Tagore,

Imogen Holst10:24

It was through him that I was sent out for a few months to the Taggore University in West Bengal, where my job was to

Imogen Holst10:33

teach what I could

Imogen Holst10:35

of Western music to the Indian musicians there. And at the same time, of course I learnt what I could. In these days we're used to having concerts of Indian music and lessons on them and lectures and recordings.

Imogen Holst10:49

But it was hardly known at all twenty years ago, and it was very, very exciting.

Imogen Holst10:54

Actually my next

Imogen Holst10:56

Record I've chosen of a bit of Indian music.

Imogen Holst10:59

It's

Imogen Holst11:01

Again, awful to have such a tiny bit of it, because, as you know, I'm sure, they go on sometimes all night, and quite often for six hours.

Imogen Holst11:11

So it's just a tiny snippet with the two instruments improvising round each other.

Presenter11:48

A short extract from Chiati Dohoon played by Viliat Khan and Bhismilla Khan.

Presenter11:54

Now after you left Dartington began the current the Alderborough period of your life.

Imogen Holst12:01

Yes. Benjamin Britton wrote to me and asked if I'd go and help him.

Imogen Holst12:05

as his amanuensis and also to help with the Alborough Festival. That was just over twenty years ago.

Presenter12:09

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter12:11

Now what does a composer's amanuensis do?

Imogen Holst12:16

All the odd jobs.

Imogen Holst12:18

Preparing the full score.

Imogen Holst12:22

Taking the sketches, which in Benjamin Britton's case are beautifully clear and easy to read, in pencil, just as his

Imogen Holst12:31

Thought them out.

Speaker 412:31

Yeah.

Imogen Holst12:32

I had first of all, if it were an opera

Imogen Holst12:35

I had to make a vocal score.

Imogen Holst12:39

which could be reproduced.

Imogen Holst12:42

for the singers to learn their parts, the repertoire,

Imogen Holst12:46

the conductor, the producer, and so on.

Imogen Holst12:49

And sometimes there wasn't enough time to wait till we got to the end of a scene in the turn of the screw, for instance.

Imogen Holst12:56

I had to send it off four or five pages at a time every day. It was actually desperate.

Imogen Holst13:03

But it was, of course, the most wonderful experience in learning about music.

Presenter13:09

Yes.

Presenter13:10

You became a a director, of course, of the Alderborough Festival, and you've done a lot of conducting and active participation in the festival.

Imogen Holst13:17

Yes, I'm still a director, but I don't do so much conducting now.

Presenter13:23

Now modestly you don't describe yourself as a composer, but I know you do compose. Which of your own compositions have pleased you most?

Imogen Holst13:31

Well, I'm not really a composer. I'm grateful that I know enough about it to be able to edit music, especially when it's a job like The Fairy Queen with Benjamin Britton.

Presenter13:40

Yes. You've written quite a number of books on music.

Presenter13:44

uh including several books on your father and his music. Have you any more books on the stocks?

Imogen Holst13:49

Yes, I've got one that I've actually got in my bag with me here at my side, which is just going to the printer on conducting a choir. That's a guide for amateurs, because I find that people don't get enough help.

Imogen Holst14:03

and they're sometimes so ignorant about things like performing rights and all that, as well as about how to take a rehearsal and how to beat time. But my real task at the moment is a thematic catalogue of my father's music.

Imogen Holst14:16

It's the hundredth anniversary of his birth in two years, and I thought that a thematic catalogue was necessary.

Imogen Holst14:23

Well, if I'd known how difficult it was, I should never have embarked.

Presenter14:26

Is all the material ready litter hand, all his manuscripts?

Imogen Holst14:29

Yeah.

Imogen Holst14:30

That's one of my worst problems, because

Imogen Holst14:34

Of course, he gave away, as all composers do, he gave away manuscripts to his friends, and whom he gave them to seventy or eighty years ago, I have no notion.

Imogen Holst14:43

and I just hope that their grandchildren have still got them somewhere in their attics. But I can't find the grandchildren to ask them to look in their attics. That's my worst problem.

Presenter14:56

Yes. Well, we must all look in our attics and make sure that we're not.

Imogen Holst14:59

Well, I'd be very grateful if you would.

Presenter15:01

Okay.

Presenter15:02

Let's have another record.

Imogen Holst15:04

This is Sweet Honeysucking Bees. This is a madrigal by Wilby and it's sung by the Wilby Consort, directed by Peter Pearce.

Speaker 415:14

Please meet homely socks with coffee, socks eat pigs, socks with girls, with a must, my young mistake, pigs and whites.

Speaker 215:15

We've got some skateboards.

Imogen Holst15:23

Yeah.

Speaker 415:30

Cause if the choices make the choices and movies are

Imogen Holst15:31

Doesn't make choice of it.

Speaker 415:37

Uh

Speaker 415:43

Yeah. Who's playing? Who made a new strong f ⁇?

Speaker 415:49

Take your blood on stage that is made.

Imogen Holst15:52

Uh

Speaker 416:02

Frozen cheese.

Speaker 416:04

Let's smiling roses and sweetly sing Andrew Heaven and rose and cheers Let smiling roses and sweetly

Presenter16:23

The first part of A MAGICL by John Wilby by The Wilby Consort Sweet Honey Sucking Bees

Presenter16:30

Let's go straight on to record number six.

Imogen Holst16:32

This is a bit of the planets. Within the last few weeks they've brought out My Father Conducting It in 1926.

Imogen Holst16:42

It's impossible to choose a short bit of a work like the Planets, but I have got

Imogen Holst16:47

Just a few bars of Saturn, the bringer of old age that was his favourite.

Imogen Holst16:53

And it's the bit that's leading up to the climax where the listener feels old age approaching, and then you get the the almost menacing sound.

Imogen Holst17:04

of the bells clashing.

Imogen Holst17:07

and it's as if the listener is struggling against old age.

Imogen Holst17:11

And then

Imogen Holst17:14

Easy off.

Imogen Holst17:16

And the air becomes thin instead of throat.

Imogen Holst17:21

and one can be reconciled.

Imogen Holst17:24

to the idea of old age being something that is welcome.

Presenter18:34

An excerpt from Saturn from Holst's The Planet Suite, conducted by the composer in nineteen twenty six, one of the earliest electrical recordings.

Presenter18:44

Imogen, how practical are you? Could you look after yourself on a desert island?

Imogen Holst18:48

I'm practically my own job, Roy.

Imogen Holst18:51

I could make a bamboo pipe to play tunes on.

Presenter18:54

Could you make a bamboo hut to live in?

Imogen Holst18:56

I could not, and the walls would fall down within the first ten minutes if I tried.

Presenter19:01

What about food? Could you live off the land do you know about cultivation?

Imogen Holst19:05

Not a thing. I've got a small garden, but it's my friends who keep it going. I don't think I should be much good. I'm not good at cooking. I can make very good coffee, but coffee doesn't grow, does it?

Presenter19:17

Assuming, um, a boat, a raft or something of the sort was washed up, would you try to escape?

Imogen Holst19:22

In a boat, yes, I think, if it looked as though it were going to keep afloat. Raft would be a bit tricky. I'm no good at swimming.

Imogen Holst19:32

I certainly shouldn't be able to make a boat or a raft. But if I saw a boat in the far distance, I think I should signal to it if provided, of course, I had got a mirror to catch the sunlight. I don't suspect I should have a mirror, should I?

Presenter19:46

Although there are other ways of lighting fires. Yes, I'm sure. Let's have record number seven.

Imogen Holst19:48

Yes, I

Imogen Holst19:52

This one is one of Benjamin Britton's songs from the Chinese.

Speaker 419:57

Autumn wind rises, might touch them.

Imogen Holst19:59

My task launch.

Speaker 420:02

Grass and trees with a geese of song

Speaker 420:07

Orchids all in blue, chrysanthemums smell sweet. I drink of my lovely lady.

Imogen Holst20:13

Ah

Speaker 420:18

My name I can forget.

Speaker 420:24

Floating for drawing a bird crosses forever.

Imogen Holst20:24

Yeah.

Speaker 420:28

Across the big stream.

Imogen Holst20:28

Perfect.

Speaker 420:30

White Waves Rise.

Imogen Holst20:30

Right waves long

Speaker 420:34

Flute and drum clip time, clip time, to sound a robust song.

Imogen Holst20:38

Oh my

Imogen Holst20:42

Uh

Speaker 420:44

Sad thoughts come

Speaker 420:50

Your tears are few, each, your tears are few, eight or sure, sure, eight are sure, each are sure.

Presenter20:56

It's just so

Presenter20:58

I'm sure

Presenter21:04

The Autumn Wind from Benjamin Britton's Songs from the Chinese, sung by Peter Pearce with Julian Bream as guitarist.

Presenter21:12

Now we come to your last record. What's that to be?

Imogen Holst21:14

And I've chosen a bit of Bach. It had to be Bach,'cause he's much my favourite composer.

Imogen Holst21:20

It's the last movement of the second Brandenburg Concerto.

Imogen Holst21:25

And it's one of the happiest pieces of music I know.

Imogen Holst21:28

It's very difficult to play.

Imogen Holst21:31

But of course here on this record it doesn't sound difficult at all because the players are so superb.

Imogen Holst21:37

It's a triumph.

Imogen Holst21:40

And

Imogen Holst21:42

To me

Imogen Holst21:43

It links up so much with what we know Bach himself said. Bach told his pupils that everything must be possible.

Imogen Holst21:52

And this sounds like that.

Imogen Holst21:54

Because

Imogen Holst21:56

It's got that sense of well-being and ease.

Imogen Holst22:01

and to me on my desert island it would also bring back

Imogen Holst22:06

those memories of having heard it recorded,

Imogen Holst22:10

in our wonderful concert hall, The Maltings.

Presenter22:13

Near Albrid.

Imogen Holst22:14

Yes, sneak.

Presenter23:18

The last movement of Bach's second Brandenburg concerto, once again the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Britton. If you could take only one of your eight discs, which would it be?

Imogen Holst23:30

It would be a difficult choice between Bach and Purcell.

Imogen Holst23:34

But I think Purcell would win.

Presenter23:36

Right. And one luxury to take to the island with you?

Imogen Holst23:39

Yes, I'd like to take a miniature spy glass I have. It's only about an inch long, and it's

Imogen Holst23:46

less than an ounce in weight. I noticed that when my friend Arthur Bliss was on this programme he chose to take a superb pair of binoculars with him, but I should find those much too heavy to carry.

Imogen Holst23:59

This little spy glass I take with me on the marshes when I'm walking near Arlborough.

Presenter24:03

Yes, for looking at wildlife.

Imogen Holst24:04

Looking at birds and and flowers.

Presenter24:06

And one book to take with you, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already under a palm tree.

Imogen Holst24:11

Yes, I'd have Kilvert's diary.

Imogen Holst24:14

It's my favourite bedside book, and Kilvert believed that it's a positive luxury to be alive.

Imogen Holst24:23

He was a parson in the West Country. A hundred years ago he was writing, and he kept this diary, not expecting any one to read it ever.

Imogen Holst24:33

And he just jotted down everything that had happened, and he was such a wonderful human being, so sympathetic.

Imogen Holst24:40

that it is a never failing source of encouragement.

Presenter24:45

Right, Kilbert's Diary. And thank you, Imogen Host, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Imogen Holst24:51

And thank you for asking me. You've almost converted me to having a grammar.

Presenter24:56

Bravo. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 425:05

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.