Gustav Holst (21 September, 1874 - 25 May, 1934) [1] [2] was an
English composer and was a music teacher for over 20 years.
Holst is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets.[1] Having studied at the Royal
College of Music in London,[2] his early work was influenced by Ravel,[2]
Grieg, Richard Strauss, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, [3] but most of his music is highly original, with influences from Hindu spiritualism and English folk tunes.[2] Holst's music is well known for unconventional use of metre and haunting melodies.
Gustav Holst wrote almost 200 catalogued compositions, including orchestral suites,
operas, ballets, concertos,
choral hymns, and songs. (See Selected
works, below).
Holst became music master at St Paul's Girls' School [4] in 1905 and also
director of music at Morley College in 1907, continuing in
both posts until retirement (as detailed below).[2]
He was the brother of Hollywood actor Ernest Cossart, and father of the composer and
conductor Imogen Holst, who wrote a biography of her father in 1938.[3]
Life
Name
He was originally named Gustavus Theodor von Holst but he dropped the von from his name in response to
anti-German sentiment in Britain during World War I, making it official by deed poll in 1918.[5]
Early life
Holst was born in 1874 at 4 Clarence Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England[1] [5][6] to a family of
Swedish extraction (by way of Latvia and Russia). The house was opened as a museum of Holst's life and times in 1974. He was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School for Boys.
Holst's grandfather, Gustavus von Holst of Riga, Latvia, a
composer of elegant harp music, moved to England, becoming a notable harp teacher.[5] Holst's father Adolph Holst, an organist, pianist, and choirmaster, taught
piano lessons and gave recitals; and his mother, Clara von Holst, who died when Gustav was
eight, was a singer.[5] As a frail child
whose early recollections were musical, Holst had been taught to play piano and violin, and began
composing when he was about twelve.[5]
Holst's father was the organist[1] at All
Saints' Church in Pittville, and his childhood home is now a small museum, devoted partly to
Holst, and partly to illustrating local domestic life of the mid-19th century.
Holst grew up in the world of Oscar Wilde, H. G.
Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Conan
Doyle, Gauguin, Monet, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Puccini. Both he and his sister learned piano from an early age, but Holst, stricken with a
nerve condition that affected the movement of his right hand in adolescence, gave up the piano for
the trombone,[2] which was less painful to play.
He attended the newly relocated Royal College of Music[1] in London on a scholarship, studying with Charles V.
Stanford, and there in 1895,[5] he met fellow student and lifelong friend Ralph
Vaughan Williams,[1] whose own music
was, for the most part, quite different from Holst’s,[5] but whose praise for his work was abundant and who later shared an interest in Holst teaching
the English vocal and choral tradition (folk song, madrigals, and church
music).[2]
Holst was influenced during these years by socialism, and attended lectures and speeches by
George Bernard Shaw, with whom he shared a passion for vegetarianism, and by
William Morris, both of whom were among the UK's
most outspoken supporters of the socialist movement in the UK.
It was also during these years that Holst became interested in Hindu mysticism and spirituality,[2] and this interest was to influence his later works, including
Sita (1899–1906, a three-act
opera based on an episode in the Ramayana), Sāvitri,[2] a
chamber opera based on a tale from the Mahabharata, and Hymns from the Rig Veda,[2] in
preparation for which he taught himself basic Sanskrit to avoid reliance on the ‘substandard’
translations of the day.
To earn a living in the era before he had a satisfactory income from his compositions, he played the trombone[1] in the Carl Rosa Opera Company[2] and in a popular orchestra called the 'White
Viennese Band', conducted by Stanislas Wurm. The music was cheap and repetitive and not to
Holst's liking, and he referred to this kind of work as 'worming' and regarded it as 'criminal'. Fortunately his need to 'worm'
came to an end as his compositions became more successful, and his income was given stability by his teaching posts.[1]
During these early years, he was influenced greatly by the poetry of Walt Whitman, as
were many of his contemporaries, and set his words in The Mystic Trumpeter (1904). He also set to music poetry by
Thomas Hardy[5] and Robert Bridges.
Musical career
In 1905, Holst was appointed Director of Music at St
Paul's Girls' School[4][2] in Hammersmith, London, where he composed the successful and still popular St Paul's Suite[4] for the school orchestra in 1913.[1] In 1907, Holst also became director of
music at Morley College.[2] Those two leadership positions were the most important of his teaching posts, and he retained
both posts until the end of his life.[2]
During the first two decades of the 20th century, musical society as a whole, and
Holst's friend Vaughan Williams in particular, became interested in old English
folksongs, madrigal singers,[2] and
Tudor composers. Holst shared in his friend’s admiration for the simplicity and economy of
these melodies, and their use in his compositions is one of his music’s most recognizable features.
Holst was an avid rambler. He walked extensively in Italy and France, and had covered nearly every path in England by the time of his
death[citation needed]. He also travelled outside the
bounds of Europe, heading to French-controlled Algeria in 1906 on doctor's orders as a treatment
for asthma and the depression that crippled him after his submission failed to win the
Ricordi Prize, a coveted award for composition. His travels in the Arab and Berber land, including an extensive bicycle tour of the Algerian Sahara, inspired the suite Beni Mora, written upon
his return.
After the lukewarm reception of his choral work The Cloud Messenger in 1912, Holst was
again off travelling, financing a trip with fellow composers Balfour Gardiner and
brothers Clifford Bax and Arnold Bax to
Spain, with funds from an anonymous donation. Despite being shy, Holst was fascinated by people
and society, and had always believed that the best way to learn about a city was to get lost in it. In Gerona, Catalonia, he often disappeared, only to be found hours later by his
friends having abstract debates with local musicians. It was in Spain that Clifford Bax introduced Holst to astrology, a hobby that was to inspire the later Planets suite. He
read astrological fortunes until his death, and called his interest in the stars his "pet vice."
Shortly after his return, St Paul’s Girls School[4] opened a new music wing, and Holst composed St Paul’s Suite[4] for the occasion.[1] At around this time (1913), Stravinsky premiered the Rite of Spring, sparking
riots in Paris and caustic criticism in London. A year later, Holst first heard Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, an
‘ultra-modern’ set of five movements employing ‘extreme chromaticism’ (the consistent use
of all 12 musical notes). Holst would have certainly been affected by the performance and, although he had earlier lampooned the
stranger aspects of modern music (he had a strong sense of humour), the new music of Stravinsky[2] and
Schoenberg influenced, if not initially spurred, his work on The Planets.
Holst's compositions for wind band, though relatively small in number, guaranteed him a
position as the medium's cornerstone, as seen in innumerable present-day programmes featuring his two Suites for Military
Band. His one work for brass band, A Moorside Suite, remains an important part of
the brass band repertoire.
The Planets
-
Holst and wife Isobel bought a cottage in Thaxted, Essex and,
surrounded by medieval buildings and ample rambling opportunities, he started work on the
suite that would become his best known work, the orchestral suite The Planets. It was meant to be a series of ‘mood pictures’ rather than anything concretely connected
with astrology or astronomy, though
Holst was known to have been using the book What Is A Horoscope by Alan Leo as a
guide:
- Mars – Independent, Ambitious, Headstrong
- Venus – Awakens Affection and Emotion
- Mercury – The ‘Winged Messenger of the Gods’, Resourceful, Adaptable
- Jupiter – Brings Abundance, Perseverance
Holst was also influenced by a 19th-century astrologer called Raphael, whose book concerning the planets' role in world
affairs led Holst to develop the grand vision of the planets that made The Planets suite such an enduring success.
The work was finished in two stages, with Mars, Venus and Jupiter written at one time, and Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Mercury
written after a break that Holst had taken to work on other pieces. The work was finished in 1916.[1] The influence of Stravinsky
was picked up by a critic who called it ‘the English Le Sacre du Printemps
(Rite of Spring)’.
The first of the seven pieces is Mars, ‘the most ferocious piece of music in existence’, evoking a battle scene of immense
proportion with its signature 5/4 metre (it changes to 5/2 and 3/4 at the end) and blatant dissonance. Holst directed that it be played slightly faster than a regular march, giving it a
mechanized and inhuman character. It is often a surprise to learn that Mars was actually finished just before the horrors
of World War I. Mars is easily Holst’s most famous piece, and has been quoted in everything
from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos to
The Venture Brothers episode, Hate Floats.
Calm Venus and self-satisfied Jupiter, both also quite well known, demonstrate influence from Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky, Elgar and Schoenberg.
Uranus at first appears to be a quirky and frenetic homage to Dukas’s The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but Holst did not know
the Frenchman's score at the time. Neptune is mysterious and evokes an other-worldly scene.
Most original is Saturn, in which 'a threatening clock ticks inexorably as the
bassline, revealing both the dignity and frailties of old age'. Saturn was reputedly Holst's favourite of the seven
movements.
Holst lived to see the discovery of Pluto in 1930. Although it was immediately accepted as a
planet, Holst chose not to add Pluto to his suite. He seems to have been vindicated by the 2006 decision by the International
Astronomical Union to downgrade Pluto's planetary status to that of dwarf planet. A
piece entitled "Pluto: The Renewer" was composed by Colin Matthews in 2000, and it has
been occasionally included in performances of The Planets.
Holst himself conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the very first
electrical recording of The Planets, in 1926, for HMV. Although, as his daughter Imogen
noted, he couldn't quite achieve the gradual fade-out of women's voices and orchestra he had written (owing to the limitations of
early electrical recording), it was a landmark recording of the work. The performance was later issued on LP and CD format.
At the onset of World War I, Holst tried to enlist but was rejected because of his bad
eyes, bad lungs, and bad digestion. In wartime England, Holst was persuaded to drop the ‘von’ from his name, as it aroused
suspicion. His new music, however, was readily received, as ‘patriotic’ and English music was demanded at concert halls, partly
due to a ban on all ‘Teutonic’ music. Towards the end of the war he was offered a post within
the YMCA’s educational work programme as Musical Director, and he set off for Salonica (present day Thessoliniki, Greece) and Constantinople in
1918. While he was teaching music to troops eager to escape the drudgery of army life, The Planets Suite was being
performed to audiences back home. Shortly after his return after the war’s end, Holst composed Ode to
Death, based upon a poem by Walt Whitman.
During the years 1920 – 1923, Holst's popularity grew through the success of The Planets and The Hymn of Jesus (1917)[1] (based on the Apocryphal
gospels), and the publication of a new opera, The Perfect Fool (a satire of a work
by Wagner). Holst became something of 'an anomaly, a famous English composer’, and was
busy with conducting, lecturing, and teaching obligations. He hated publicity – he often refused to answer questions posed by the
press, and when asked for his autograph, handed out prepared cards that read, “I do not hand out my autograph”. Though he may not
have liked the attention, he appreciated having enough money for the first time in his life. Always frail, after a collapse in
1923 he retired from teaching to devote the remaining (eleven) years of his life to composition.[1]
Later life
In the following years, he took advantage of new technology to publicize his work through sound recordings and the
BBC’s ‘wireless’ broadcasts. In 1927, he was commissioned by the New York Symphony Orchestra to write a symphony. He took this opportunity to work on an
orchestral piece based on Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, a work
that would become Egdon Heath, and which would be first performed a month after
Hardy’s death, in his memory. By this time, Holst was ‘going out of fashion’, and the piece was poorly reviewed. However, Holst
is said to have considered the short, subdued but powerful tone poem his greatest masterpiece. The piece has been much better
received in recent years, with several recordings available.
Towards the end of his life, in 1930, Gustav Holst wrote Choral Fantasia (1930)[1], and he was commissioned by the BBC to write a
piece for military band: the resulting Hammersmith was a tribute to the place where he had spent most of his life, a
musical expression of the London borough (of Hammersmith), which begins with an attempt to
recreate the haunting sound of the River Thames sleepily flowing its way.
Gustav Holst had a lifetime of poor health worsened by a concussion during a backward fall
from the conductor's podium, from which he never fully recovered.[5] In his final 4 years, Holst grew ill with stomach problems. One of
his last compositions, The Brook Green Suite, named after the land on which St
Paul’s Girls’ School[4] was built, was
performed for the first time a few months before his death. He died of complications following stomach surgery, in
London, on May 25, 1934. His ashes were interred at Chichester Cathedral in
West Sussex, with Bishop George Bell giving
the memorial oration at the funeral.
Audio Biography
In 2007, BBC Radio 4 produced a radio play "The Bringer of Peace" by Martyn Wade, which is an intimate biographical portrait
of composer Gustav Holst. The play follows his early dismay at his lack of composing success, to the creation of the Planets
Suite; it is in seven tiers, following the structure of the Planets Suite. Adrian Scarborough played Gustav Holst. The producer
was David Hitchinson. [1]
Media
Selected works
- For a full list, see List of compositions by Gustav
Holst.
The following are some of the compositions by Gustav Holst: [7]
- First Suite in Eb for Military Band (1909)
- Chaconne
- Intermezzo
- March
- Second Suite in F for Military Band (1911)
- March: Morris Dance, Swansea Town, Claudy Banks
- Song Without Words "I Love my Love"
- Song of the Blacksmith
- Fantasia on the "Dargason"
- St Paul's Suite[4] Op.29 No.2 (Finale is another arrangement of 4th movement in Second Suite)
(1913)[2]
- Jig
- Ostinato
- Intermezzo
- Finale (The Dargason)
- The Planets Suite Op. 32 (1916)[2]
- Mars, the Bringer of War
- Venus, the Bringer of Peace
- Mercury, the Winged Messenger
- Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (main theme:"I Vow to Thee, My
Country")
- Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
- Uranus, the Magician
- Neptune, the Mystic
- Brook Green Suite
- Prelude
- Air
- Dance
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n
Britannica Concise, "Gustav Holst", 2006, Concise.Britannica.com webpage:
ConcBritannica-GHolst.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Encyclopædia Britannica Online, "Gustav Holst", 2006, Britannica.com
webpage: Britannica-GHolst.
- ^ a b HighBeam Encyclopedia, "Gustav Holst", 2006, Encyclopedia.com webpage:
EncyclopediaCom-GHolst.
- ^ a b c d e f g The school does not
use a dotted "St." in their title "St Paul's Girls' School" (see St Paul's website: SPGS.org).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i
- ^ Holst Birthplace Museum website
- ^ "Gustav Holst (1874-1934) | Compositions" (online), Kenric Taylor, 2006,
GustavHolst.info webpage: GHolstInfo-Compositions.
References
- Kenric Taylor, "Gustav Holst (1874-1934) | Compositions" (list of works), 2006, GustavHolst.info webpage: GHolstInfo-Compositions.
External links
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