St Paul's Suite

Holst’s St Paul’s Suite is school music raised to the level of art: a four-movement work for string orchestra that transforms English folksong into something bold and (for 1913) new. Holst had joined the staff of St Paul’s Girls’ School in West London in the autumn of 1905. The school soon realised that he was no ordinary music teacher; and in the spring of 1913 it built him a new music wing, complete with a soundproof composing room for his personal use. In celebration and gratitude, Holst crafted this four-movement suite for the school’s string orchestra: an instant classic whose freshness and sheer playability has made it enduringly popular with amateur and professional performers alike. There’s a rollicking “Jig”, an ingenious “Ostinato” (Holst makes sure that the second violins get to enjoy themselves) and a poetic “Intermezzo”. It’s all topped off with a spirited and inventive “Finale”, in which an old English dance-tune, The Dargason, finds itself in unlikely counterpoint with Greensleeves.