 |
{hohlst}
Gustav Holst, b. Sept. 21, 1874, d. May 25, 1934, was one
of the leading English composers of the early 20th century.
The son of a music teacher, Holst studied composition with
Sir Charles Stanford at the Royal College of Music (where
he later taught from 1919 to 1924) and began his career as
a church organist, trombonist, and choral director. Keenly
interested in Eastern philosophy and music, he learned Sanskrit
and set to music parts of the Hindu scriptures in his own
translations. Other influences were his colleague and friend
Ralph Vaughan Williams and the folklorist Cecil Sharp, both
of whom interested him in English folk song.
A bold harmonic experimenter, Holst arrived at his fully mature
style with The Planets (1914-17), a brilliantly orchestrated
work in which each of seven movements corresponds to one of
the planets, and the mystical choral work The Hymn of Jesus
(1917). He further developed his novel harmonic idiom in his
Choral Symphony (1923-24) and the symphonic poem Egdon Heath
(1927), leading to polytonality in the orchestral Hammersmith
(1930) and other works. The Fugal Overture (1922) and A Fugal
Concerto (1923) were inspired by baroque forms. His opera
subjects ranged from Hindu scripture in Savitri (1908), to
Shakespeare's England in At the Boar's Head (1924), to operatic
parody in The Perfect Fool (1921). His folk-song interests
are seen in the orchestral Summer Rhapsody (1907) and the
St. Paul's Suite (1913) for strings.
 |
 |
|
- 
