Gustav Holst

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Gustav Theodore Holst (September 21, 1874 – May 25, 1934) was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets. His music was influenced by Indian spiritualism and English folk tunes, and is well known for unconventional use of meter and haunting melodies.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Early life 1.2 The Planets 1.3 Later life 2 Media 3 Selected Works 4 External links

Life

Early life

Gustavus Theodor von Holst was born in 1874 in Cheltenham, England to a family of Swedish extraction (by way of Latvia and Russia), and was educated at Pate's Grammar School. His father was organist 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. He grew up in the world of Wilde, Wells, Doyle, Gaugin, Monet, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Puccini. (He dropped the 'von' from his name in response to anti-German sentiment in England during World War I, making it official by deed poll in 1918.)

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, which was less painful to play.

He attended the newly founded Royal College of Music in London on a scholarship, studying with Charles V. Stanford, and there he met fellow student and lifelong friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose own music was for the most part quite different from Holst’s, but whose praise for his work was abundant.

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 William Morris, both of whom were of England’s most outspoken supporters of the socialist movement in England.

It was also during these years that Holst became interested in Indian mysticism and spirituality, and this interest was to influence his later works, including Sita, a three-act opera based on an episode in the Ramayana, Savitri, a chamber opera based on a tale from the Mahabharata, and Hymns from the Rig Veda, in preparation for which he taught himself basic Sanskrit so that he didn’t have to rely 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 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.

He found a job as the Director of Music at St Paul’s Girls' School in Hammersmith, London, where he composed a successful and still popular work for the school orchestra St Paul's Suite in 1913. Holst's compositions for the 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.

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 and Robert Bridges.

It was also at this time that musical society as a whole, and friend Vaughan Williams in particular, became interested in old English folksongs, madrigal singers, 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. He also traveled outside the bounds of Europe, heading to French-controlled Algeria in 1906 on doctors 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 competition. 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 traveling, 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 opened a new music wing, and Holst composed St Paul’s Suite for the occasion. 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 use of all 12 tones). 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 humor), the new music of Stravinsky and Schoenberg influenced, if not initially spurred, his work on The Planets Suite.

The Planets

Holst and wife Isobel bought a cottage in 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 Holst took to work on other pieces. The Planets was finished in 1916. 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’, invoking a battle scene of immense proportion with its signature 5/4 meter 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 video games.

Calm Venus and self-satisfied Jupiter, both also quite well known, demonstrate influence from Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky, Elgar and Schoenberg.

Uranus is a quirky and frenetic homage to Dukas’ The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Most original is Saturn, in which 'a threatening clock ticks inexorably as the baseline, revealing both the dignity and frailties of old age'. Saturn was Holst's favorite of the seven movements.

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 program as Musical Director, and he set off for Salonica (present day 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.

Between the years 1920 – 1923, Holst's popularity grew through the success of The Planets and The Hymn of Jesus (based on the Apocryphal gospels, written in 1917), 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 to live for the first time in his life.

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, an opportunity he took to work on an orchestral work based on Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, a work that would become Egdon Heath, and 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 has been much better received in recent years, with several recordings available.

Towards the end of his life, in 1930, Holst was commissioned by the BBC to write a piece for military band, and the resulting Hammersmith was a tribute to the place where he had spent most of his life, a musical expression of the borough which begins with an attempt to recreate the haunting sound of the River Thames sleepily flowing its way.

In the following years, Holst grew ill with stomach problems. One of his last compositions, The Brook Green Suite, named after the land on which the St Paul’s School was built, was performed for the first time a few months before he died of complications following stomach surgery on May 25, 1934. He is buried in Chichester Cathedral in West Sussex.

Media

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Selected Works

• The Mystic Trumpeter (1904)
• Two Songs Without Words Op.22 (1906)
  1. Country Song
  2. Marching Song
• A Somerset Rhapsody (1907)
• Savitri opera(1908)
• First Suite for Military Band in Eb (1909)
  1. Chaconne
  2. Intermezzo
  3. March
• Beni Mora (Oriental Suite) Op.29 No.1 (1909 – 1910)
  1. First Dance
  2. Second Dance
  3. Finale
• Two Eastern Pictures (1911)
• Second Suite for Military Band in F (1911)
  1. March: Morris Dance, Swansea Town, Claudy Banks
  2. Song Without Words "I Love my Love"
  3. Song of the Blacksmith
  4. Fantasia on the "Dargason"
• Psalm 86 H.117 No.2 (Psalmo 86), (1912)
• Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda (1908 – 1912)
  1. First Group (for women's chorus and orchestra) (H.96)
     1. Battle Hymn
     2. To the Unknown God
  2. Second Group (for chorus and orchestra) (H.98)
     1. To Varuna (God of the Waters)
     2. To Agni (God of Fire)
     3. Funeral Chant
  3. Third Group (for women's chorus and harp) (H.99)
     1. Hymn to the Dawn
     2. Hymn to the Waters
     3. Hymn to Vena (Sun rising through the mist)
     4. Hymn of the Travelers
  4. Fourth Group (for men's chorus and orchestra (H.100)
     1. Hymn to Sama (the juice of an herb)
     2. Hymn to Manas (the spirit of a dying man)
• Two Eastern Pictures (for women's voices and harp) (H.112)
  1. Spring
  2. Summer
• St. Paul's Suite Op.29 No.2 (Finale is another arrangement of 4th movement in Second Suite) (1913)
  1. Jig
  2. Ostinato
  3. Intermezzo
  4. Finale (The Dargason)
• Hymn to Dionysus Op.31 No.2(H.116) (1913)
• The Planets Suite Op. 32 (1916)
  1. Mars, the Bringer of War
  2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace
  3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger
  4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
  5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
  6. Uranus, the Magician
  7. Neptune, the Mystic
• The Hymn of Jesus (1917)
• Ode to Death 1919
• Short Festival Te Deum (H.145) (1919)
• The Perfect Fool Op.39 ballet (1918–1922)
• Fugal Concerto for Flute, Oboe & String Orchestra (1923)
• At the Boar's Head (1924)
• Egdon Heath, (1927)
• A Moorside Suite (1928)
  1. Scherzo
  2. Nocturne
  3. March
• Double Concerto Op.49 (1929)
  1. Scherzo/Allegro
  2. Lament/Andante
  3. Variations on a Ground
• The Wandering Scholar opera, (1929 – 1930)
• Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo (1930)
• Lyric Movement (1933)
• Brook Green Suite (H.190) (1933)
  1. Prelude
  2. Air
  3. Dance

External links

• www.GustavHolst.info
• Ian Lace's Biography
• Easybyte - free easy piano arrangement of Thaxted / Jupiter theme from the Planetsda:Gustav Holst

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