The Splendour Falls and the other songs from The Princess were written for a performance of tableaux from The Princess by the girls of James Allen Girls’ School in London where Holst taught. The song is scored for Female Voices SA with a small echo choir unaccompanied and is full of recognizably Holstian shifting harmonies and Vocal effects. In 1847 Alfred Tennyson later Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom published a narrative poem The Princess that concerned the education of women. In The Princess set at a summer fete a new college for women is created by Princess Ida. A Prince and his friends infiltrate dressed as women. A love story ensues. ThePrincess was also the source material for Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida.
