Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed many other works across a range of genres, although none achieved comparable success. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss being most crucial early in his development. The subsequent inspiration of the English folksong revival of the early 20th century, and the example of such rising modern composers as Maurice Ravel, led Holst to develop and refine an individual style.
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1917. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a wordless female chorus. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its supposed astrological character.
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about music. As a composer he was prolific: the list of his works totals more than 700, mostly compositions of his own, but a substantial minority of orchestrations and arrangements of other composers' works. Those whose music he orchestrated range from William Byrd to Edward Elgar to Noël Coward.
William Alwyn, was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher.
Edwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen's musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player. Despite achieving considerable success during his lifetime, many of the composer's works remained unpublished and unperformed until after his death in 1961. Bowen's compositional style is widely considered ‘Romantic’ and his works are often characterized by their rich harmonic language.
The First Suite in E♭ for Military Band, Op. 28, No. 1 is written by the English composer Gustav Holst. It is considered one of the cornerstone masterworks in the concert band repertoire. Officially premiered in 1920 at the Royal Military School of Music, the manuscript was originally completed in 1909. Along with the subsequent Second Suite in F for Military Band, written in 1911 and premiered in 1922, the First Suite convinced many other prominent composers that serious music could be written specifically for band.
Adam Von Ahnen Carse was an English composer, academic, music writer and editor, remembered today for his studies on the history of instruments and the orchestra, and for his educational music. His collection of around 350 antique wind instruments is now in the Horniman Museum.
The Symphony No. 1 Elevamini is an orchestral work by Australian-born composer Malcolm Williamson.
The Choral Symphony is a work by Gustav Holst for soprano soloist, chorus, and orchestra in a setting of verses by John Keats. Written in 1923–24, it was premiered in Leeds Town Hall on October 7, 1925, conducted by Albert Coates with Dorothy Silk as soloist. The same performers gave the work's second performance three weeks later in Queen's Hall, London. The work is sometimes known as the First Choral Symphony, although a planned 'second Choral Symphony' never progressed beyond some uncompleted sketches.
Helen Sinclair Glatz was an English composer and pianist, a pupil of Ralph Vaughan Williams, best known for her teaching at Dartington Hall and the Dartington International Summer School for over 40 years.
Beni Mora is a three-movement suite of music in E minor for large orchestra, by Gustav Holst. The first performance was at the Queen's Hall, London, on 1 May 1912, conducted by the composer. The work was inspired by music Holst heard in Algeria during a holiday in 1908. The constant repetition of one theme from Arabic folk music in the last movement has been described as a precursor of modern minimalism. The piece also includes dance rhythms and wistful, slow sections, and makes strong use of woodwinds and percussion. Beni Mora has been recorded several times by British orchestras, most recently in 2011.
Egdon Heath, Op. 47, H. 172, subtitled "A Homage to Thomas Hardy", is a tone poem by Gustav Holst, written in 1927. Holst considered it his most perfectly realised composition.
This is a summary of 1931 in music in the United Kingdom.
The Hymn of Jesus, H. 140, Op. 37, is a sacred work by Gustav Holst scored for two choruses, semi-chorus, and full orchestra. It was written in 1917–1919 and first performed in 1920. One of his most popular and highly acclaimed compositions, it is divided into two sections. The Prelude presents the plainsong Pange lingua and Vexilla regis first instrumentally and then chorally; the second section, the Hymn, is a setting of his own translation of the Hymn of Jesus from the Apocryphal Acts of St John.
Divertimento, or Divertimento for Orchestra, is a suite of eight orchestral bagatelles by American composer Leonard Bernstein. Completed in 1980 and written to celebrate the centenary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it is well-known for featuring the notes B and C in most of its melodic material.
Felix Weingartner's Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 29 is a musical composition that Weingartner started in 1897 and completed in 1899. The overall musical language of the piece is late-romantic although with a high emphasis on Schubertian melodicism. Furthermore, as with other contemporary Austrian composers of the end of the 20th century such as Gustav Mahler or Hans Rott, his second symphony heavily uses a Brucknerian treatment of simple motifs through extensive repetition and grand orchestration.
The Double Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra is a work by Gustav Holst in three movements played without a break. It was written in 1929 and first performed in 1930 by its dedicatees, the sisters Adila Fachiri and Jelly d'Arányi. Though now praised by many critics, it has never been frequently performed in the concert hall. It is characterized by fugal counterpoint, folk-like melody, and bitonality without dissonance.
The Lyric Movement for viola and small orchestra is a short concertante work by Gustav Holst. It was one of his last compositions, being written in 1933. It was first performed in 1934, the year of his death, by its dedicatee, the violist Lionel Tertis, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult. Though its early performers found the Lyric Movement too austere for their tastes, it has more recently been considered one of Holst's most successful later works. It has been recorded several times.
A Fugal Overture, Op. 40/1, H 151, is a short concert overture for full orchestra by the English composer Gustav Holst. It was written in 1922 and first performed in 1923, and is a very early example of musical neoclassicism. Though there were conflicting opinions from Holst's contemporaries about the work's merits, it has since come to be considered an attractive and exciting, if slight, example of Holst's later style.
A Fugal Concerto by the English composer Gustav Holst is a short concerto in three movements for flute, oboe and string orchestra. It was composed and first performed in 1923. Influenced by the counterpoint of J. S. Bach, it is an early example of neoclassicism. Early reviews of the concerto were mixed, but it has since come to be seen as an attractive, if slight, example of Holst's neoclassical style, and it has been recorded many times.
