Hyperion Records

Gustav Holst (1874–1934) regarded This have I done for my true love (which he always referred to as ‘The Dancing Day’) as his finest partsong. It was written in 1916 for the first of the Whitsuntide Festivals that Holst organized in the parish church of Thaxted, the Essex village where Holst retreated to for long weekends to compose. In this venture he received the enthusiastic support of his friend Conrad Noel, vicar of Thaxted, a rather controversial figure whose philosophy combined, with original flair, High Anglicanism and flying the Red Flag from the church tower! Holst found the words of this old Cornish poem on the inside of the church door where Noel had pinned them. Threaded through the poem is the symbol of dance as a means of religious ritual and praise, as the words encapsulate the key events of the Gospels: Christ’s birth, baptism, temptation, betrayal, trial, crucifixion, descent into Hell, Resurrection and his Ascension in glory. Holst dedicated the work to Conrad Noel and it is commemorated by an inscription on one of the Thaxted church bells: ‘I sing for the general dance.’

from notes by Andrew Burn © 2006