Egdon Heath: Homage to Thomas Hardy

For many who love Holst, Egdon Heath (1927) is his “other” orchestral masterpiece. But it could hardly be less like the brilliant, extrovert Planets, completed a decade earlier. Subtitled “A Homage to Thomas Hardy”, it evokes the moody, desolate uplands to which Hardy gave the name “Egdon Heath” in his novel The Return of the Native. It does so with a weird, austere poetry which manages to convey intense feelings even when—as is often the case—the music is hushed and spare in texture. There are hints of human figures amongst this landscape—the slow, sad processional at the heart of the piece, for instance, or the eerie, ethereal folk-dance music that follows—but these feel more like ghosts than living presences. According to the Hardy quotation printed in the score, Egdon Heath is “a place perfectly in accord with man’s nature”, yet it is nature itself that seems to brood triumphantly, while humankind stalks through, then passes. This is not a comfortable work, but it is endlessly fascinating.