Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed many other works. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss being most crucial early in his development.
About Gustav Holst in brief
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed many other works across a range of genres, although none achieved comparable success. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss being most crucial early in his development. He was the founder of a series of Whitsun music festivals, which ran from 1916 for the remainder of his life. In his later years, his uncompromising, personal style of composition struck many music lovers as too austere, and his brief popularity declined. Nevertheless, he was a considerable influence on a number of younger English composers, including Edmund Rubbra, Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten. Holst’s works were played frequently in the early years of the 20th century, but it was not until the international success of Theplanets in the years immediately after the First World War that he became a well-known figure. His music was generally neglected until the 1980s, when recordings of much of his output became available. He died in 1934, and is buried in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, with his wife, Clara Cox, née Lediard, and their two sons, Matthias and Evelyn von Holst. He is survived by his wife Mary Thorley Stone, his two sons and his two grandchildren. He also leaves behind a wife and two daughters, who he had with his first wife Clara, and a son, Emil Gottfried, who went on to become an actor in the West End, New York and Hollywood.
He had no children of his own, but had two step-sons, who also became composers and arrangers. The family was of mixed Swedish, Latvian and German ancestry, with at least one professional musician in each of the previous three generations. He studied at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford and later became a teacher at Morley College, where he served as musical director from 1907 until 1924 and pioneered music education for women at St Paul’s Girls’ School. He dedicated several of his early compositions to his former pupil, another of his pupils, MaryThorley Stone. In 1885 Adolph married Mary Thorleys Stone, another pupil, and they had two sons. All four sons were subject to what Adolph’s biographer calls ‘benign neglect’ and Gustav in particular was ‘not overburdened with attention or understanding, with a weak sight and a neglected chest’ He was taught to play the trombone at the age of 12, but soon abandoned it for the violin. He began composing in 1886, inspired by Macaulay’s poem Horatius, but abandoned it soon after. At age 14 he took up the brass instrument, thinking that playing a brass instrument might improve his asthma. His wife Clara died in February 1882, and the family moved to another house, where Adolph recruited his sister Nina to help raise the boys. Gustav recognised her devotion to the family and dedicated several compositions to her.
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