2024 is not just the 150th anniversary of Gustav Holst’s death but also the 40th anniversary of the death of his daughter Imogen (affectionately known as ‘Imo’ by her friends). Imo devoted her life to music, promoting her father’s music as well as being an assistant to Benjamin Britten. As a noted conductor in her own right, she founded the Purcell Singers in 1952, and had a passionate commitment to music education. She also set up the Holst Foundation, which was instrumental in enabling the creation after her death of NMC Recordings, and which in its turn continued her commitment to the work of living composers. Less well-known is Imogen Holst’s own output, most of it unknown and unperformed until very recently. Her music is the focus of a new recording from two groups – the BBC Singers and the BBC Concert Orchestra – whose existence has been under threat recently, and it’s almost as much a celebration of their artistry as it is of Holst’s musical talents and productivity.

The earliest work here is the orchestral overture Persephone (1929), a student work which owes a debt (obvious from the outset) to Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. There are shades, too, of the more impressionistic passages from Gustav Holst’s The Planets, yet the command of orchestration and long-term pacing as well as several motivic twists point to a striking individual voice even at this early stage in Holst’s career. Its only performance was a rehearsal at the Royal College of Music under Malcolm Sargent. This assured account from the BBC Concert Orchestra under Alice Farnham – sounding slightly dry in the acoustic of Maida Vale Studio 1 – will do the younger Holst’s compositional reputation no harm at all.

Earlier still is the Allegro assai of 1927, intended as the first movement of an unrealised Suite for strings. With its strong folk and modal flavouring, this gives a better foretaste of Holst’s eventual direction of travel. Unperformed until very recently, it is incisively and buoyantly played here by the BBCCO’s string players. On Westhall Hill (1935) was composed for the Westhall Hill Players who met at the eponymous home of Captain and Mrs Kettlwell, the latter being the first secretary of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. An example of what Holst herself dubbed her ‘useful’ music, it is scored for strings, single woodwind, timpani and percussion, it is based on two unidentified folk tunes, and is a vivid demonstration of the range of sonorities available even with fairly small forces. Very much in the tradition of Vaughan Williams and Holst senior, it nevertheless points to a confident individual musical voice, and one can imagine it becoming a popular concert item for chamber orchestras with limited resources.

More substantial in scale is the Suite for String Orchestra of 1943. It was composed for a wartime concert at the Wigmore Hall in June 1943, and performed by the Jacques String Orchestra under the direction of the composer herself. By this time she had thoroughly absorbed a modal musical language into her own individual style, and the Suite’s four movements have plenty of character as well as a sure command of the idiom. Particularly engaging is the Intermezzo third movement, scored without double basses but exploiting the possibilities of divisi writing to create rich yet ethereal textures. The jaunty closing Jig finds room for a more reflective central section, and a richly-scored conclusion. Farnham and the BBC players give a thoroughly committed performance of this compelling work.

The point of departure for the 1962 Variations on ‘Loth to Depart’ is a 16th-century tune harmonised by the late Elizabethan/early Jacobean composer Giles Farnaby. Scored for string quartet and double string orchestra, it was written for a concert at the RCM in honour of Mary Ibberson (retiring director of the Rural Music Schools Association), and conducted by Adrian Boult. It pays vivid tribute to Holst’s own involvement in music education, with quasi-programmatic references in several of the movements .The pastoral third variation (a ‘rural canon’ in particular is exquisitely played here, with minimal vibrato, brilliantly offset by the bustling activity (representing the ceaseless activity of the teaching staff’) of the moto perpetuo fourth variation.

The remaining two works pay tribute to Holst’s activities as a noted conductor of choral music. What Man is He? is a setting of words from the Book of Wisdom, dating from around 1940 and scored for chorus and orchestra. It contains music of both haunting beauty and forcefulness, and is exquisitely sung here by the BBC Singers with colourful support from their colleagues in the Concert Orchestra. The closing pages, with their invocation of the Holy Spirit, become more optimistic, leading to a final tutti whose radiant scoring is vividly realised by Farnham and her committed forces.

The Festival Anthem of 1946 is a setting of Psalm 104 (‘Praise the Lord, O my soul’). Originally scored for mixed voices and organ, it is heard here in a most persuasive arrangement for voices and string orchestra by Colin Matthews (co-founder of NMC Recordings). Blazing with commitment, this performance is full of sensitivity both to the well-projected text and the impressive dynamic and expressive range of Holst’s setting. It builds to a thrilling climax, and thus sets the seal on an outstanding and revealing tribute to Imogen Holst, finally making available to listeners several substantial works from her elusive output.