Holst, Gustav Theodore

Holst, Gustav Theodore (1874-1934), British composer, known for his compositions based on Hindu literature and English folk song. Born in Cheltenham, England, he studied with the British composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford while earning a living as a trombonist and conductor. After 1919 he taught at the Royal College of Music in London. His important works before about 1912 are settings of Brahman scriptures, including the chamber opera Sāvitri (1908), and four groups of chorus pieces called Hymns from the Rig Veda (1908-1912), which he had translated from Sanskrit himself. Their instrumentation is varied: one set is scored for women's voices and solo harp. An interest in mysticism is also shown by his orchestral suite The Planets (1916), in which each movement displays the characteristics assigned to the planet by ancient Greek astrology. This has become his best-known work, combining colourful orchestration with powerfully rhythmic melodies. Mystical influence reached its apogee in his choral masterpiece The Hymn of Jesus (1920), which takes its text from the Apocryphal New Testament.

Later, like his close friend the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, he turned his attention to English folk song; his many folk song arrangements for band, orchestra, and chorus culminated in the one-act opera At the Boar's Head (1924). In the 1920s his music became noticeably more austere, even using bitonality in works like the concerto for 2 violins (1929). In his last few years, however, in works such as Hammersmith (1931) and the Brook Green Suite (1933), a new lyricism can be detected, only to be cut short by his death in 1934 after a lifetime of ill-health.