Gustav HOLST (1874-1934)
Born
into a musical family in England, Holst was a frail child whose first
recollections were musical, He was taught to play the piano and violin, and
began to compose when he was about twelve. Although his preference was for the
keyboard, the cramping neuritis in his right hand and the desire to be part of
an orchestra, resulted in him choosing the trombone as his major instrument
instead.
In
1904 he was appointed Musical Director at St. Paul’s Girls’ School,
Hammersmith. Some of his compositions reflect this appointment, which he held
for most of the rest of his life, such as the St. Paul's Suite and the
Hammersmith Prelude and Scherzo. Holst was invited to the United States to
lecture at the University of Michigan and Harvard where he was very well
received.
Although chiefly remembered today as the composer of the orchestral suite 'The Planets', he was a prolific composer who wrote in practically every classical genre from solo-song and chamber pieces to massively scored orchestral works and opera. His compositions are intensely original and individual; he had an innate understanding of the descriptive qualities of orchestral instruments and the human voice. A person of diverse interest, he was inspired by sources as diverse as Sanskrit and Greek literature.
He died in 1934, four months short of his sixtieth birthday, after a lifetime of poor health exacerbated by a concussion suffered in a backward fall from the conductor’s podium, from which he never fully recovered