On Gustav Holst at 150…

I’m slightly ashamed to say that it wasn’t until the autumn of this year that I realised that 2024 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of England’s finest composers. I’m not sure what that says about me, or about the classical music media, or the state of arts and culture in the UK or many other things (I was certainly aware of the same celebrations for Ralph Vaughan Williams two years ago), but nevertheless, I missed it. But I’ve battled through the shame, and I may be a little late to the birthday party but I’m here to celebrate one of the most unusual, thought-provoking, inscrutable and inspirational composers this island has ever produced, Gustav Holst.

Holst has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, my father had a selection of records that I enjoyed organising as a child, most of these were pop albums but buried amidst the often-random selection of things he’d acquired during the 1960s and 70s were a few classical LPs and one in particular always caught my eye – it was a recording of Holst’s The Planets. Obviously, this early infatuation was nothing to do with the music (I don’t think I listened to it until I was in my early teens) more to do with the massive picture of Saturn that adorned the cover (this same process was what drew me to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band way before I knew who The Beatles were), but I was always interested in what this was. Eventually I listened to it and that was that – a lifelong love, if sometimes a slightly detached love, but a love nonetheless of Holst’s music.  

Holst’s music has been there ever since, never with a burning intensity that I have listened to other composer’s music (ask my children about #Poulenc2023 – if you care for these things, he was my most listened to composer on my 2023 Spotify Unwrapped, whatever that is) but always nagging away at me, asking me difficult questions and rewarding my time. During my PhD I became infatuated with his late masterpiece Egdon Heath (I even wrote a blog post about it in 2012, which is a long time ago…) and have had periods of obsession with the brass band piece the Moorside Suite, the intense soul-searching of the Choral Fantasia and even the schmaltzy perfection of his carol In the bleak midwinter. So, armed with the knowledge of his anniversary, and accompanied by his composer-daughter Imogen’s book The Music of Gustav Holst, I have taken a deep-dive into some of the works I didn’t know that well to fully celebrate this creative individual in this special year.

Two things have struck me from this process: firstly, there is some amazing music to discuss, and secondly her book is extremely odd. It is hyper-critical, astoundingly dismissive, often colloquial and written from a strange perspective where she is trying to almost win over popular opinion that Holst was a sub-par composer. I guess it was written in 1950 and the way we view Holst has changed dramatically since then, but it is quite the read (and I hope my daughter never writes a book like that about me). She likes The Planets in case you were wondering (but not all of it). However, she does have a point that Holst’s output is as enigmatic as the man himself – for all the warm, colourful, assured composition of The Planets, the St Paul’s Suite, the Moorside Suite and The Hymn of Jesus there are so many unusual, bizarre, austere and challenging works that point in multiple different directions from his most popular pieces.  Imogen Holst divides her father’s works into multiple categories: ‘Wagner Inspired’, ‘Folk-Song Revival’, ‘Sanskrit’, ‘Neoclassicism’ and on and on. She also calls the juvenile works ‘early horrors’, but that is to be expected. The number of different classifications highlights the variety of different influences on Holst’s works and the number of different paths his creative journey took him on. I’m not sure you could say the same thing for Vaughan Williams.

I think I’ve listened to 95% of his music by this point, some with greater concentration than others, but always with an open mind and ears. It has been hugely rewarding. I didn’t know The Hymn of Jesus as well as I should, and it is a mystical, ecstatic masterpiece. The Ode to Death is similar but more heartbreaking. Hammersmith is extremely fine and the Double Concerto for two violins and orchestra deserves to be so much more well-known. Of all the pieces I’ve listened to, perhaps the one that has affected me most is the final work he finished, the Lyric Movement for viola and small orchestra from 1933. This is concentrated, expressive and yearning music, but also numinous and shadowy, beautifully written for the viola and its melancholy tones. As with all composers who die too young (Holst was 59 when he died following an operation) you are left wondering what might have been, what might he have produced had he lived to the same, ripe old age as his good friend Vaughan Williams? Well, there would more than likely have been a symphony as he had been working on it in his final months, probably many other different paths, junctions and cul de sacs. But at least we have what we have, and an incredible body of work it is.

So, happy birthday to Gustav. Why not have a listen to something other than The Planets by Holst in this celebration year.

PAC