Page 612 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

That said, East Anglia has another treasure in the Thaxted Festival which
happens not so far from Aldeburgh on the Essex borders, in a small town

with a great church whose splendour rivals Blythburgh and happens to be
where Gustav Holst was resident organist during the 1910s-20s.

As this year is Holst’s 150th anniversary, the festival (which traces its origins
back to his initiative) has been celebrating with a vengeance. And among
the things I heard there was a packed-out organ recital (yes there are such

things) on the historic instrument at which he used to sit.

Dating back to the 1820s, it was played here by Peter Holder – sub-organist
at Westminster Abbey and soon to be Director of Music at Christ Church,
Oxford – in a programme that featured a new commission from Iain

Farrington: a composer best known for arranging other people’s works, but
with a virtuosity that demands attention in its own right.

The commission was an organ suite based on Holst’s folk-song settings, re-
imagined into something like the jazzily toe-tapping style of Farrington’s

addictive Advent carol, Nova, nova, that’s become a staple on the Oxbridge
choral circuit in the past few years. Only a hard heart could resist it. Mine
surrendered unequivocally.

I was more equivocal about the Magic Flute which also played in Thaxted

Church during the festival – done by a touring company, Wild Arts, for
which I have a high regard. It wasn’t so inventive as their previous shows
have been, and didn’t look so good: Flute is a problem for a small-scale
outfit, it’s too complicated to reduce down without turning into slightly

desperate cartoon-like mayhem.

But the music was a joy, with an engagingly warm, well-sung Papageno from
Gareth Brynmor John and brilliant playing from a tiny but accomplished
band under Orlando Jopling.

Holst could only have been pleased to think that, in these times when access

to live opera is so limited in Britain, it turns up at Thaxted. Courtesy of his
surviving Festival. And making people very happy in the process.

Photo: screenshot from www.brittenpearsarts.org.