1926 GUSTAV HOLST conducts THE PLANETS London Symphony Orch 78

$

62

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A series of great  classical orchestral and instrumental performances by major conductors, composers and instrumentalists.

Vaughan Williams once described The Planets (1914-16), by Gustav Holst, as "the perfect equilibrium" of the mystic and the melodic sides of the composer's nature. Shortly before its composition, Holst told a friend, "As a rule I only study things that suggest music to me...Recently the character of each planet suggested lots to me." Typically known as a miniaturist, Holst expanded his reputation when he wrote this work of symphonic proportions for an impossibly large orchestra. Containing seven tone poems, the composition, which is comparable in size to those by Strauss, Mahler, and Schoenberg, has become known as his biggest and most important work. Accustomed to composing only for special purposes, Holst luxuriously allowed himself everything he wanted in this work.

Gustav Holst conducts the London Symphony in his famous 1926 recording of

The Planets, suite for orchestra & female chorus, Op. 32, H. 125

Filler side on Mercury: Marching Song No 2 fr Two Songs Without Words

original issue 7x 12"   UK Columbia 78 rpm records, plain generic album 

EXCELLENT close to pristine. Album solid, two small tears on front cover

About this recording:

witness Holst's alert and fresh-faced stride through his brief Marching Song set down as a filler for Mercury at the last session for The Planets. In the suite itself, any passing evidence of fallible technique is more than compensated for by the special interpretative chemistry and insight unique to a communicative creator. In her father's biography Imogen Holst refers to his clear beat, economical and unfussy movements û 'there was never anything spectacular about his conducting, but it was brimful of nervous energy. At rehearsals he always got the very best out of his singers and players. They realised that they were faced with a man who, in spite of his easy, sympathetic manner, would never allow a single note to sound casual, but who cared for each note with a fiery intensity'.

Gustav Theodore Holst (21 September 1874 û 25 May 1934)[1][2] was an English composer and was a music teacher for over 20 years. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets.[1] Having studied at the Royal College of Music in London,[2] his early work was influenced by Ravel,[2] Grieg, Richard Strauss, and fellow student Ralph Vaughan Williams,[3] but most of his music is highly original, with influences from Hindu spiritualism and English folk tunes.[2] Holst's music is well known for unconventional use of metre and haunting melodies.

Holst wrote almost 200 catalogued compositions, including orchestral suites, operas, ballets, concertos, choral hymns, and songs (see Selected works below).

Holst became music master at St Paul's Girls' School[4] in 1905 and director of music at Morley College in 1907, continuing in both posts until retirement.[2]

He was the brother of Hollywood actor Ernest Cossart and father of the composer and conductor Imogen Holst, who wrote a biography of her father in 1938.[3]

Life

[edit] Name
He was originally named Gustavus Theodor von Holst, but he dropped the "von" from his name in response to anti-German sentiment in Britain during World War I, making it official by deed poll in 1918.[5][6]

[edit] Early life
Holst was born on 21 September 1874, at 4 Clarence Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England[1][5][7] to a family of Swedish extraction (by way of Latvia and Russia). The house was opened as a museum of Holst's life and times in 1974. He was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School for Boys.

Holst's grandfather, Gustavus von Holst of Riga, Latvia, a composer of elegant harp music, moved to England, becoming a notable harp teacher.[5] Holst's father Adolph von Holst, an organist, pianist, and choirmaster, taught piano lessons and gave recitals; and his mother, Clara von Holst, who died when Gustav was eight, was a singer.[5] As a frail child whose early recollections were musical, Holst had been taught to play piano and violin, and began composing when he was about twelve.[5]

Holst's father was the organist[1] at All Saints' Church in Pittville, and his childhood home is now a small museum, devoted partly to Holst, and partly to illustrating local domestic life of the mid-19th century.

Holst grew up in the world of Oscar Wilde, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Conan Doyle, Gauguin, Monet, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Puccini. Both he and his sister learned piano from an early age, but Holst, stricken with a nerve condition that affected the movement of his right hand in adolescence, gave up the piano for the trombone,[2] which was less painful to play.

Royal College of Music (1894 site), where Holst & Ralph Vaughan Williams studied in 1895He attended the newly relocated Royal College of Music[1] in London on a scholarship, studying with Charles V. Stanford, and there in 1895[5] he met fellow student and lifelong friend Ralph Vaughan Williams,[1] whose own music was mainly quite different from HolstÆs,[5] but whose praise for his work was abundant and who later shared an interest in Holst teaching the English vocal and choral tradition (folk song, madrigals, and church music).[2]

Holst was influenced during these years by socialism, and attended lectures and speeches by George Bernard Shaw, with whom he shared a passion for vegetarianism, and by William Morris, both of whom were among the UK's most outspoken supporters of the socialist movement.

It was also during these years that Holst became interested in Hindu mysticism and spirituality,[2] and this interest was to influence his later works, including Sita (1899û1906, a three-act opera based on an episode in the Ramayana), Savitri,[2] a chamber opera based on a tale from the Mahabharata, and Hymns from the Rig Veda,[2] in preparation for which he taught himself basic Sanskrit to avoid reliance on the "substandard" translations of the day.

To earn a living in the period before he had a satisfactory income from his compositions, he played the trombone[1] in the Carl Rosa Opera Company[2] and in a popular orchestra called the "White Viennese Band" , conducted by Stanislas Wurm. The music was cheap and repetitive and not to Holst's liking, and he referred to this kind of work as "worming" and regarded it as "criminal". His need to "worm" came to an end as his compositions became more successful, and his income was given stability by his teaching posts.[1]

During these early years, he was influenced greatly by the poetry of Walt Whitman, as were many of his contemporaries, and set his words in The Mystic Trumpeter (1904). He also set to music poetry by Thomas Hardy[5] and Robert Bridges.

[edit] Musical career
In 1905, Holst was appointed Director of Music at St Paul's Girls' School[4][2] in Hammersmith, London, where he composed the successful and still popular St Paul's Suite[4] for the school orchestra in 1913.[1] In 1907, Holst also became director of music at Morley College.[2] These were the most important of his teaching posts, and he retained both until the end of his life.[2]

During the first two decades of the 20th century, musical society as a whole (and Holst's friend Vaughan Williams in particular) became interested in old English folksongs, madrigal singers,[2] and Tudor composers. Holst shared in his friendÆs admiration for the simplicity and economy of these melodies, and their use in his compositions is one of his musicÆs most recognizable features.

Holst was an avid rambler. He walked extensively in Italy, France, and England. He also travelled outside the bounds of Europe, heading to French-controlled Algeria in 1906 on doctor's orders as a treatment for asthma and the depression that crippled him after his submission failed to win the Ricordi Prize, a coveted award for composition. His travels in the Arab and Berber land, including an extensive bicycle tour of the Algerian Sahara, inspired the suite Beni Mora, written upon his return.

After the lukewarm reception of his choral work The Cloud Messenger in 1912, Holst was again off travelling, financing a trip to Spain with fellow composers Balfour Gardiner and brothers Clifford Bax and Arnold Bax with funds from an anonymous donation. Despite being shy, Holst was fascinated by people and society, and had always believed that the best way to learn about a city was to get lost in it. In Gerona, Catalonia, he often disappeared, only to be found hours later by his friends having abstract debates with local musicians. It was in Spain that Clifford Bax introduced Holst to astrology, a hobby that was to inspire the later Planets suite. He read astrological fortunes until his death, and called his interest in the stars his "pet vice".

Shortly after his return, St PaulÆs Girls School[4] opened a new music wing, and Holst composed St PaulÆs Suite[4] for the occasion.[1] In 1913, Stravinsky premiered The Rite of Spring, sparking riots in Paris and caustic criticism in London. A year later, Holst first heard SchoenbergÆs Five Pieces for Orchestra, an "ultra-modern" set of five movements employing "extreme chromaticism" (the consistent use of all 12 musical notes). Although he had earlier lampooned the stranger aspects of modern music, the new music of Stravinsky[2] and Schoenberg influenced his work on The Planets.

Holst's compositions for wind band, though relatively small in number, guaranteed him a position as the medium's cornerstone, as seen in innumerable present-day programmes featuring his two Suites for Military Band. His one work for brass band, A Moorside Suite, remains an important part of the brass band repertoire.

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