Gustav Holst Savitri

Overview

Gustav Holst                                Savitri

Ralph Vaughan Williams      The Lark Ascending

Benjamin Britten                      Sinfonietta, Op.1

The Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia

and Opera Theater

Glen Barton Cortese, conductor

Jessica Miller, mezzo soprano  

Kyu Won Han, baritone

Simon O’Neill, tenor     

Ik-Hwan Bae, violin          The Lark Ascending

This Phoenix USA release brings together three cornerstones of early 20th‑century British music. Holst’s intimate chamber opera Savitri anchors the program, complemented by the lyrical radiance of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending and the youthful brilliance of Britten’s Sinfonietta. The performances highlight the clarity, color, and expressive depth of this distinctive repertoire.

This all English album is a wonderful mix of the known and little known. Gustav Holst’s opera in one act “Savitri” is based on an episode from the Indian classic Mahabharta. Holst created this work as a result of an almost obsessive fascination with spiritualism and Asian culture that swept through Europe prior to World War I. Benjamin Britten’s Op.1 “Sinfonietta” was written when he was an 18 year old music student and is dedicated to his teacher Frank Bridge. “The Lark Ascending” by Ralph Vaughan Williams is in his own words “an English landscape transcribed into musical terms.” This work is one of the 20th century’s most beautiful Pastorales, as set for solo violin and orchestra.