HAMMERSMITH is a Prelude & Scherzo which was commissioned by the BBC Milkitary Band in 1930. Holst subsequently rewrote it for full orchestra.
Those who knew nothing of his forty year old affection for the Hammersmith district of London were puzzeled at this title. The work is not programme music. Its mood is the outcome of long years of familiarity with the changing croweds and the changing river : those Saturday night crowds, who were always good natured even when they were being pushed off the pavement into the middle of the traffic, and the stall holders in that narrow lane behind the Broadway, with their unexpected assortment of goods lit up by brilliant flares, and the large woman at the fruit shop who always called him "dearie" when he bought oranges for his Sunday picnics.
As for the river, he had know it since he was a student, when he paced up and down outside William Morrics's house, discussing Ibsen withthe earnst young socialists. During all these years since then, hi favourite London walk had been along the river path to Chiswick.
In Hammersmith the river is the background to the vcrowd : it is a river that goes on its way unnoticed and unconcerned.
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