Holst Symphony in F minor "The Cotswolds"

I was thinking I might not blog Holst at all but a BBC4 documentary about him reminded me that I have a CD of the Cotswolds symphony and it was about time I listened to it again. This first recording, from 1999, was made 100 years after the symphony was written and this really is a badly neglected work. If you consider that no English composer had written a major symphony by that time, it is even more impressive. You can hear elements of Holst's early Wagner worship but this is a beautiful work, especially the slow movement which is an elegy for William Morris, whom Holst knew and admired, as well as sharing socialist principles. Definitely a symphony that deserves many more performances.