It is rare for a large chorus, usually singing with a permanent symphony orchestra, to have a programme expressly planned for recording on its own but that is the reason behind this record of music by Elgar and Holst, both of whom had considerable links with Birmingham: but when you see the Elgar title, do not think this is yet another performance of a work perhaps slightly overrecorded for its modest pretensions. This one is the sole example at present that offers the original with piano solo rather than the orchestration Elgar made a year later. Nor is much lost in the piano version—and there are some gains. It is true that the orchestral colour is missing: but as in most music that exists for both piano and orchestra, what is lost is compensated for by a more personal, intimate, accompaniment; and not least in the crisp and stylish playing of Richard Markham. His accompaniments are a delight throughout. Note the personal charm he gets into the ''Lullaby'' with its accompaniment melody quite separate from the sustained choral sound. Michael Kennedy remarks in his sleeve-note that the suite in this form ''conveys the domestic, companionable spirit of the music''. Companionable, yes; but can the domestic character be conveyed by so large a choir as this? It seems to me that the intention of recording with piano accompaniment is upset by so large a body of singers, for any 'domestic' character has gone.
For one thing, though the CBSO Chorus is admirably trained by Simon Halsey with unerring vocal lines of clear tone and with excellent, well-tuned chording, no amount of effort can allow them to articulate words audibly, so the booklet is absolutely necessary. Not that Alice Elgar's verses are really worth bothering about—reading them set out as poems in the booklet emphasizes their triteness. The whole work is an example of how a composer in joyful spirits, as Elgar was on those holidays in Garmisch, and in love with his wife, does not need fine poetry to inspire his music.
The Holst part-songs on the other side are a very different matter, with their verse, some of it not easy to read and the settings, mostly slow, coming from the brain rather than the heart. Many readers will, however, be more attracted to this side since none of the songs is often if ever heard. The Dirge and Hymeneal was withdrawn by Holst because he used its musical idea as the basis for ''Saturn'' in The Planets. This is the only one with accompaniment and you will at once recognize the piano chords which swing slowly over the choral texture, not to mention the later suggestion of the bells which clang ad libitum in the other work. But don't expect the music to get jolly at the Hymeneal! My dictionary tells me that the word means a wedding hymn and it is in the mood of a hymn that it remains in this setting.
The motet ''The Evening Watch'' is for unaccompanied choir in eight parts and is slow and quiet throughout. It is not easy music to assimilate—nor, I guess, to sing; but the CBSO Chorus make a lovely sound in it. You might think that its companion ''sing we the men'' would be Holst in more hearty mood, especially since it was written for his students at Morley College, but it is scarcely that. Finally, the Five Part-Songs dating from the very beginning of the century follow in the much the same vein. Some were never completed by the composer but have been 'edited' for this performance. (We are told who edited them but given no indication of how much of Holst's music went into them or how they were completed.)
Holst's music has great originality, and probably more of that quality than either Elgar or Delius, both of whom died in the same year, 1934. What he never found was warmth in his music. But for those who admire it, this is the side that will attract them.'