Holst, Gustav Theodore, originally Gustav Theodore von Holst 1874-1934
English composer

Born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, of Swedish origin, he studied under Charles Stanford, at the Royal College of Music, but neuritis in his hand prevented him from becoming a concert pianist. He taught music at St Paul's School, Hammersmith (1905-57), and then became musical director at Morley College (1907) and at Reading College (1919). He shared Ralph Vaughan Williams' interest in the English folksong tradition, which inspired his St Paul's Suite for Strings (1913) and many charming arrangements of songs. Economy and clarity became his hallmark. He emerged as a major composer with the seven-movement suite The Planets (1914-16). Among his other major works are The Hymn of Jesus (1917), his comic operas The Perfect Fool (1922) and At the Boar's Head (1924), and his orchestral tone-poem Egdon Heath (1927), inspired by Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native. His daughter Imogen (1907-84), like him, was a musical educationist, conductor and composer of folk-song arrangements, and was associated with Benjamin Britten in the Aldeburgh Festivals.