Gustav Holst - Early Life

Early Life

Holst was born on 21 September 1874, at 4, Pittville Terrace (named today Clarence Road) Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. The house has been opened as a museum devoted to Holst's life and times since 1974, devoted partly to him and partly to illustrating local domestic life of the mid-19th century.

Holst's great-grandfather, Matthias von Holst, was of Nordic origin, and came to England in 1802 from Riga, Latvia. His son Gustavus moved to England with his parents as a child; he became a composer of salon-style harp music and a notable harp teacher. Holst's father, Adolph von Holst, was organist and choirmaster at All Saints' Church in Pittville. He also gave both piano lessons and recitals, most regularly at the Assembly Rooms. Holst's mother, Clara Cox von Holst (née Lediard), who died in 1882, was a singer and pianist who bore two sons, Gustav and Emil Gottfried (who later became Ernest Cossart, a film actor in Hollywood). Following his wife's death, Adolph von Holst moved with his sons to 1, Vittoria Walk, Cheltenham, and eventually married Mary Thorley Stone in 1885: she gave birth to two further sons, Matthias Ralph and Evelyn Thorley.

Holst was christened Gustavus Theodore von Holst, after his grandfather and his great-uncle Theodor, a painter. He was a frail child with neuritis in his arm which plagued him for the rest of his life. His early recollections were musical; he was taught to play the piano and violin, and began composing when he was about twelve. He also started to play the trombone when his father thought this might improve his son's asthma. He was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School for Boys. He began composition at school, writing piano pieces, organ voluntaries, songs, anthems and a Symphony in C minor (from 1892). He was also organist and choir master at Wyck Rissington in the Cotswolds.

He attended the Royal College of Music on a scholarship, where he studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and where in 1895 he met fellow student Ralph Vaughan Williams, who became a lifelong friend. Vaughan Williams's own music was in general quite different from Holst’s, but he praised Holst's work abundantly and the two men developed a shared interest in exploring and maintaining the English vocal and choral tradition as found primarily in folk song, madrigals and church music. Holst and Vaughan Williams were able to criticise each other's compositions as they were being written. They never lost this degree of mutual trust.

While at the Royal College of Music, Holst fell in love with the music of Wagner, which he was able to hear at Covent Garden. He also came under the influence of William Morris, joining the Hammersmith Socialist Society and attending lectures by Morris and George Bernard Shaw (with whom he temporarily shared a passion for vegetarianism ). Holst remained a socialist all his life. He was also invited to conduct the Hammersmith Socialist Choir, teaching them Madrigals by Thomas Morley, choruses by Purcell, extracts from Wagner as well as works by Mozart and himself.