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Holst regarded it as his masterpiece, and so did his friend Vaughan Williams. Yet ever since its premiere in February 1928 Egdon Heath has stood in the shadow of two works Holst composed more than a decade previously, the St Paul’s Suite (1912–13) and The Planets (1914–16). Though it lacks the immediate tuneful appeal of those two works, this short tone-poem (under 15 minutes in duration) has in common with some of the more mystical passages of The Planets an atmosphere of detachment, coupled with passages reminiscent of the sombre yet noble tread of the trombones’ theme in ‘Saturn’.

Egdon Heath bears the subtitle ‘Homage to Thomas Hardy’, and its title refers to the fictional heathland described so memorably in the opening chapter of Hardy’s 1878 novel The Return of the Native. Holst prefaced the score with a quotation from the novel:

‘A place perfectly accordant with man's nature – neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither common-place, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony!’

Holst had long been an admirer of Hardy’s work, having set three of his poems to music in the early 1900s as part of the Six Baritone Songs, op.15. A more immediate impetus was the gift from Holst’s American friend, Austin Lidbury, of Hardy’s novel in the spring of 1926, as well as a walk over the heathland between Wool and Bere Regis in Dorset. A commission for a symphony from the New York Symphony Orchestra was the final catalyst, and on 9 August 1927 Holst paid a visit to Hardy – their only verified meeting – when they drove to the heath itself, ‘just then purple with heather’, in Hardy’s own words.

Hardy died just three weeks before Egdon Heath’s New York premiere, under the baton of Walter Damrosch, on 12 February 1928. The following day Holst himself conducted the British premiere with the City of Birmingham Orchestra in Cheltenham, while the London premiere on 23 February was conducted by Václav Talich, and was received (according to contemporary accounts) with respect rather than enthusiasm.

Critics have debated the extent to which Egdon Heath chimes with or diverges from Hardy’s own worldview. Its brooding detachment seems to lack that very human quality that gives vitality even to the author’s lesser works. The scoring is restrained – a standard orchestra including brass but no percussion or harp, and an enlarged string section – and the outer sections, framed by a downward-groping theme first heard on the double-basses and then in close imitation in the upper strings, paint a bleak picture of a desolate landscape. The sudden liveliness of the string writing at the Poco Allegro after figure 2 in the score perhaps suggests human activity, though seen from a distance, as if it were so many ants.

This is followed by the steady progress of an Andante maestoso led by the trombones, alternating with a slightly more animated passages. But then – after call-and response woodwind solos – comes perhaps the most haunting music of all, when against string drones first the flutes, then the inner strings, and finally flutes and bassoons deliver a mournful lament in parallel fourths, creating a chillingly unsettling effect. Even when the rhythms are inflected with compound-time folk rhythms, the mood is one of ‘empty solitude’ (to quote Holst’s daughter Imogen). A final return of the steadily-treading brass is preceded by a gentle upward sweep in the strings: the closest we get to real warmth in the score. The closing Molto Adagio (fig. 11) seems to move the listener to an even more distant perspective. Holst’s philosophical detachment (evident from his Hindu-themed earlier works onwards) seems to win out of Hardy’s essentially human philosophy.

Some commentators have maintained that Egdon Heath was a ‘cri de cœur’, yet Holst’s own high regard for the work as well as its singular beauty in the right hands suggest something altogether more nuanced. Whether in the surely-paced recording of that ardent Holst champion Adrian Boult, or the rapt beauty of Richard Hickox’s more expansive account on Chandos, Egdon Heath is an evocation and inhabitation of place that is unique for its time, far removed from the typical English rural idyll of the period. While anticipating (not least in its tonal ambiguity) later musical trends, it is perhaps also the closest a British composer has come to the evocative yet remote landscapes of Sibelius’s more challenging tone-poems.

Given all that, the popularity of The Planets would be completely anathema to the gaunt world of Egdon Heath. Yet it deserves to be far better known than its rarity in the concert hall and on disc testifies. It is a work that rewards perseverance and ‘deep listening’, and what better time than now in the composer’s sesquicentennial year, to take the plunge? Imogen Holst’s biography of her father states that the audience at the London premiere found it ‘profoundly uncomfortable’, but in the final analysis ‘uncomfortably profound’ might be nearer the mark.

Further reading:
- Andrew R. Deane, ‘Holst, Hardy and a Heath’, The Thomas Hardy Journal, vol.12 no.1 (February 1996), 62–72

Recommended recordings:
Holst - Hymn of Jesus, Egdon Heath, Perfect Fool, etc (LPO/Boult) ALC1359 🔗
Holst - Orchestral Works (LSO/Hickox) CHAN10911X 🔗