Gustav Holst's one-act The Wandering Scholar was his most successful and well-received operatic work. Ironically, it wasn't performed until 1934, the year of the composer's death, and was largely forgotten in the wake of Holst's demise. The Wandering Scholar was adapted by Clifford Bax from one tale, "Le Pauvre Clerc," out of a 1927 volume entitled The Wandering Scholars, by Helen Waddell. Set in rural France of the thirteenth century, the piece tells the tale of Louis, a proud farmer, and his young wife Alison, who finds herself tempted by the less-than-holy priest Father Philippe while her husband is away. The rotund, Falstaffian clergyman's broad attempts at seduction are interrupted by the arrival of Pierre, a poor scholar tramping through the woods who knocks on the door asking for something to eat. He appeals to Alison's gentler nature but infuriates the priest, whose immediate efforts at persuading Alison up to the attic are thwarted. Before Pierre can eat anything, Father Philippe slanders him, saying that no woman is safe with the vagabond and drives him away. He tries to recapture the moment, but before Alison can get to the attic, Louis is heard returning and the priest hurriedly hides beneath the straw. Alison's husband has brought someone he met on the road: Pierre. The wanderer tells a tale to the farmer that reveals his wife's duplicity and the presence of the priest, who is chased from the house by the cudgel-wielding Louis. Pierre sits down to enjoy his meal while Louis leads Alison to the attic, not for a romantic dalliance but a reckoning. The Wandering Scholar runs 24 minutes and, with its Punch-and-Judy-type slapstick antics (some of which would not pass muster in a political correctness exam today). Surprisingly, for a work by Holst, there are few folk song quotations, though all of the piece has a melodic nature in the composer's folk-influence style. The speed of the action and the interaction of the characters, physically and otherwise, preclude there being many extended musical passages. Alison's lament over the priest's attempts at seduction, her resistance, and his contradictions of her attempts at loyalty to her spouse constitute one of the more charming sections, done in an almost celebratory manner with some comically dissonant notes declaring the arrival of Pierre, whose gorgeous, deliberately archaic tale of his life is one of the most beautiful vocal passages in a Holst operatic work.

© Bruce Eder, All Music Guide