Holst, Gustav (hŏlst), 1874–1934, English composer, studied at the Royal College of Music. Grieg, Richard Strauss, and Ralph Vaughan Williams influenced his early work, but most of his music is highly original. Outstanding compositions are The Planets (1918), a suite for orchestra; The Hymn of Jesus (1920), for chorus and orchestra; The Perfect Fool (1923), an opera; and Egdon Heath (1928), an orchestral piece.

Bibliography

See biography (1938) and study (2d ed. 1968) by his daughter, Imogen Holst.

Holst, Gustav(us Theodore von)

(born Sept. 21, 1874, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Eng.—died May 25, 1934, London) British composer. The son of an organist, he studied at the Royal College of Music. There he met Ralph Vaughan Williams, who became a friend for life. He made his living first by playing trombone, then as a teacher. Always frail, after a collapse in 1923 he gave up teaching to devote the rest of his life to composition. His most popular piece is the vividly orchestrated suite The Planets (1916); other works include the charming St. Paul's Suite for strings (1913), the Hymn of Jesus (1917), and the Choral Fantasia (1930).