Description
Holst wrote of this piece: “As soon as I got to work after my visit I unexpectedly wrote a thing that was meant for an overture and even now is in strict sonata form: but it happens to be a Fugue! Also it is a Dance! At present I am calling it Bally Fugue, although perhaps Fugal Ballet would be more correct.” Premiered in 1923 as an overture for his unrelated opera The Perfect Fool, the harmonic and rhythmic language certainly is reminiscent of highlights from The Planets suite, though it cannot be saidto have been enjoyed by many of Holst’s contemporaries. Writing on her father’s music, Holst’s daughter Imogen considered it “unsatisfactory”, finding only the central section a “merciful deliverance” from the “noise” of the fugue which “assaulted the ear.”
