Various performers EMI Classics 440 4712(6 CDs) ****

Nothing else in the output of Gustav Holst (1874-1934) ever matched the success of his orchestral suite, The Planets, which the NSO performed last week. The new EMI collection is a good starting point for further exploration of the work of a composer who spent time under the spell of Wagner, wrote hymns for the English Hymnal, and whose wider interests included the folk music of his native England as well as Hindu literature and philosophy – he even studied Sanskrit and made settings of parts of the Rig Veda. The generously filled set opens with Adrian Boult's fine, final recording of The Planets, includes the short operas The Wandering Scholars and At the Boar's Head, the neo-Bachian Fugal Concerto, the Hymn of Jesus, a landmark in English choral music, and four works he wrote for military band, all in sympathetic performances. See url.ie/57cs