Gustavus Theodore von Holst was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, just over 150 years ago, on 21 September 1874. (He changed his name to plain Gustav Holst because of anti-German feeling during the First World War.)
His birthplace is now a small independent museum, run by volunteers who do everything from winding clocks and gardening to tuning the grand piano that fills the front room. This was the instrument on which Holst composed The Planets between 1914 and 1916 at his home in Thaxted, Essex – the place to which he escaped during holidays from teaching at St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith (for whose students he composed the folk-influenced St Paul’s Suite in 1912-1913).
The Planets was considered at the time to be too musically radical for audiences to consume in one sitting, so early performances were limited to a selection of the seven movements. By 1920, however, word had spread and the suite was being hailed as a masterpiece: Holst was on his way to the international fame that this shy man never welcomed nor enjoyed.
Excavating Glasgow and Edinburgh