Composer Imogen Holst's Aldeburgh home given listed status
Holst became Benjamin Britten's musical assistant - who was also from Suffolk - and in 1952 she was invited to help him as he worked on the opera Gloriana marking the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.She later became the artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival.
Her Church Walk home was created by Jim and Betty Cadbury-Brown - designers for the 1951 Festival of Britain's Southbank site.Her rent consisted of just a crate of wine for the couple at Christmas and a supply of Aldeburgh Festival tickets.
When thanking the Cadbury-Brown's for the house, she wrote: "My immense and perpetual gratitude for the loveliest house in the world."The property included some of her personal items such as her writing desk as well as her father's oak music cupboard where she stored his manuscripts. The house is owned by Britten Pears Arts and is available as a holiday rental. It is also open to the public every year for Heritage Open Days.
Sir Chris Bryant, heritage minister, said the "significance" of the home "extends far beyond its status as an unassuming yet notable example of Jim Cadbury-Brown's architecture".Historic England's chief executive, Duncan Wilson, added that the home told of Holst's "contribution to British music and her connection to the Aldeburgh Festival, which continues to enrich our cultural landscape".Andrew Comben, chief executive of Britten Pears Arts, said: "The Grade II listing of her house will help us to continue to tell her story on a national and international scale."
Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
06-08-2025
- The Herald Scotland
Review: The London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Usher Hall
The 1995 work is a modern showpiece for symphony orchestra, as performances by the BBC SSO and National Youth Orchestra of Scotland have demonstrated, and it was a fine introduction to all the sections of the London Philharmonic here, especially the ensemble sound of the basses and the clarity of the wind soloists. The rest of the programme was box office gold, Holst's Planet Suite taking up the second half and the large orchestra occupying every square inch of platform in front of the audience-filled choir stalls. Somewhere offstage the National Youth Choir of Scotland made another memorable contribution to the Festival with the final Neptune movement's ethereal wordless chorus, which now seems redolent of a much healthier 20th century fascination with our Solar System. Elsewhere in the work, classical allusions emerge as readily as scientific ones, from the martial opening of Mars through the popular hymnic theme of joy-bringer Jupiter to the magical exchanges of Uranus. All the details of the marvellous orchestration, including a stellar percussion section, two harps and celesta, and rare sounds like that of the bass oboe, were apparent in Gardner's efficient reading, even if it lacked a little in the way of burnished edge. READ MORE: The first half performance of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Italian pianist Beatrice Rana was also much less flashy than it is often played, and none the worse for that. It is a keyboard show-pony's favourite, but Rana was having none of that in a measured, lyrical reading that allowed the orchestra's first oboe and other soloists their place in the spotlight and featured as beautiful an expression of the Andante Cantabile slow variation as one might hope to hear. The wonder of the work is how the 25 variations flow into one another and from soloist to orchestra and back, so having them enumerated and named in supertitles as well as on the thin free printed programme seemed a pointless distraction. And projecting the composer's programme note for Forest in the same way during the first viola's opening solo at the concert's start was just plain rude. To purchase tickets for the festivals, please click here
Scotsman
06-08-2025
- Scotsman
EIF music reviews: Holst's The Planets Mark Simpson & Richard Uttley
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... MUSIC Holst's The Planets Usher Hall ★★★★★ Put on a big, popular programme and listeners will come. That was the lesson from the London Philharmonic Orchestra's bold and blazing concert of Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody and Holst's The Planets, for which the Usher Hall was gratifyingly packed to the rafters with an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd. Not that these were simply crowd-pleasing performances. Conductor Edward Gardner gave bracing, brisk accounts that showed off the LPO as the towering juggernaut of sonic marvels that it is with hall-shaking bass, gleaming brass and golden, velvety strings. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Pianist Beatrice Rana and conductor Edward Gardner with the London Philharmonic Orchestra | Contributed Italian Beatrice Rana was an explosive soloist in Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, occasionally striking the keys so forcefully that she was heard above even the densest orchestral texture, but never compromising on gracefulness and elegance. The famous central slow variation, for example, was tender but crisp, alive with movement and emotion rather than simply a sentimental wallow. And Gardner's LPO responded with equally brittle, strongly etched playing, sliding organically between variations as the conductor's sure-headed overall architecture emerged. Their account of The Planets was generally on the brisk side, but all the more urgent and characterful for that. Mars erupted in noises of terrifying cataclysm, though Gardner kept things carefully controlled, while Mercury scampered nimbly and Jupiter was a tad more athletic than many conductors find him. It was Gardner's clear-headed, no-nonsense perspective on Holst's more visionary movements, though, that brought a sense of sharp focus and vivid meaning, in the inexorable tread of a mighty Saturn, or the wisps of sound coalescing in the closing Neptune. And it wasn't all well-known warhorses: Gardner and the LPO brought a sense of freshness and new life to Judith Weir's opening Forest, all tendrils of melody spiralling out across the orchestra's musicians. It was a concert of immense power and no less subtlety. DAVID KETTLE MUSIC Roby Lakatos & Ensemble The Hub ★★★★☆ They opened with a flourish of violin and the wire-strung clamour of cimbalom and ended with a high-velocity jazz jam. Hungarian violin virtuoso Roby Lakatos led his sextet through a near-continuous flow of repertoire that ranged from the frenetic to the unashamedly romantic. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With two violins, piano, guitar, double bass and cimbalom – the big Hungarian hammer dulcimer – the ensemble proved powerful in full flight, yet able to change tempo on a sixpence, while Lakatos, an amiable, moustachioed figure who can boast distinguished Romani musical lineage, peregrinated around the stage, virtually serenading the beanbaggers in the front row. He's a master of the extravagant flourish, whether deploying rich-toned bowing or a formidable pizzicato technique that made his instrument ring like a mandolin. When not in full exhilarating flight, twin violins flickering, his ensemble had their schmaltzy way with Broadway material such as Yentl and Fiddler on the Roof, while a snappy-swingy Deux Gitare tipped the hat to Reinhardt and Grappelli. Show-stoppers were the csárdás, rhapsodic preludes giving way to alternating high-stepping slow passages and all-out attack. Excitement intensified when they were joined unexpectedly by Wynton Marsalis, whose rapid-fire trumpet sparred with Lakatos's violin in a heady Hungarian take on Cherokee. JIM GILCHRIST Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. MUSIC Mark Simpson & Richard Uttley Queen's Hall ★★★★☆ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'It's about four minutes long, and it's really hard,' quipped clarinettist/composer Mark Simpson about his own piece Lov(escape), which opened the second half of his blazing EIF recital with pianist Richard Uttley. He wasn't wrong: it was an unapologetic showpiece that he wrote for his own semi-final recital as part of the 2006 BBC Young Musicians contest. And its characteristic mix of frenzied, breathless energy, screaming intensity and heart-on-sleeve emotion just about summed up the overall tone of Simpson's concert. He's a larger-than-life figure in his sometimes over-the-top music, and he carried over his search for emotional extremes into the brief pieces by contemporary composers that opened both parts of his recital. Among them, Sir James MacMillan's classic After the Tryst got a deeply passionate account, and Zoë Martlew's fire purification ritual of a classical piece Pyrrhos surged with appropriately incandescent energy. Ayrshire-born Jay Capperauld packed weighty emotions into his brief So My Tears Flow, and Simpson and Uttley responded with an account in which every note was deeply felt, every gesture meant. Simpson closed both halves of his concert with one of Brahms's two clarinet sonatas, in which he toned down his exuberant, forcefully projected playing, but not by much. An exhilarating recital, but an exhausting one too. DAVID KETTLE
Scotsman
01-08-2025
- Scotsman
Why Edinburgh International Festival is unique, fantastic
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... In November 1945, not long after the end of the Second World War, The Scotsman revealed plans were being drawn up for a music and drama festival in Edinburgh. 'Not only will the projected event probably be the first great post-war international art assembly in Europe but it will certainly be the first of its scope and importance to be held in Britain,' we reported. Two years later, the first Edinburgh International Festival was held, with a founding vision to 'reunite people through great art'. As the world's biggest and best arts festival gets underway, we should remember how it all started. Its ethos is just as important now as it was then. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Artists of the Circa and Opera Australia ensembles take part in a dress rehearsal of Orpheus and Eurydice | Keith Saunders However, this is not a time to be maudlin, it is a time to celebrate humanity at its finest. This year will see more than 2,000 artists from 42 nations put on 133 performances, including opera Orpheus and Eurydice, Scottish Ballet's Mary, Queen of Scots, in which the Renaissance meets punk meets haute couture, and Holst's The Planets, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
