Second Suite in F for Military Band

The Second Suite in F for Military Band (Op. 28, No. 2) is Gustav Holst's second and last suite for concert band. Although performed less frequently than the First Suite in E-flat, it is still a staple of the band repertoire. The Second Suite, written in 1911 and first published in 1922, dedicated to James Causley Windram, is longer and considered more difficult to play than its sister suite.

During Holst's earlier years as a composer, he took interest (as did many composers at the time) in folk music, and wrote many pieces based on folk tunes. He provided piano accompaniments in 1909 to 16 songs collected by Dr George Barnet Gardiner, for publication in Folk Songs from Hampshire, a volume in Cecil Sharp's County Songs series. He was taken with them and incorporated several into this suite (he later made choral arrangements of several, including ones he had already used in the suite). His contemporary and friend Ralph Vaughan Williams later based his own Folk Song Suite on English folk tunes. Seven traditional tunes are compressed into the four movements of Holst's suite.

There have been several editions of the work, most recently by Boosey & Hawkes (1984), edited by Colin Mathews, and by Ludwig/Masters (2006), edited by Frederick Fennell. In the 1940s, Gordon Jacob arranged it for full orchestra under the title "A Hampshire Suite".

In contrast to the elastic scoring of the First Suite, Holst was much more specific with the scoring of the Second Suite. His original manuscript specified the following instruments:

The 1948 full score published by Boosey and Hawkes added the following instruments:

In his revised 1984 score, Colin Matthews omits all additional instruments except the bass clarinet and the baritone and bass saxophones.

The Second Suite consists of four movements, all based on specific English folk songs.

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