1874 - 1934
Ο Γκούσταβ Θίοντορ Χολστ (Gustav Theodore Holst, 21 Σεπτεμβρίου 1874 – 25 Μαΐου 1934)[1][2] ήταν άγγλος συνθέτης και δάσκαλος μουσικής για σχεδόν 20 χρόνια. Είναι περισσότερο γνωστός για την ορχηστρική του σουίτα Οι Πλανήτες.[1] Έχοντας σπουδάσει στο Βασιλικό Κολλέγιο Μουσικής (Royal College of Music) στο Λονδίνο,[2] το πρώιμο έργο του ήταν επιρρεασμένο από τον Γκριγκ, τον Βάγκνερ,[3] τον Ρίχαρντ Στράους και τον συμφοιτητή του Ραλφ Βον Ουίλιαμς[4] ενώ αργότερα, μέσω του τελευταίου, από την μουσική του Ραβέλ.[2] Η συνδυασμένη επιρροή από τον Ραβέλ, τον Ινδικό πνευματισμό και τις παραδοσιακές αγγλικές μελωδίες[2] επέτρεψαν στον Χολστ να ελευθερωθεί από τις επιρροές του Βάγκνερ και του Στράους και να διαμορφώσει το δικό του ύφος. Η μουσική του είναι γνωστή για την αντισυμβατική χρήση του μέτρου και τις εμμονικές μελωδίες.
Ο Χολστ συνέθεσε περίπου 200 έργα, μεταξύ των οποίων περιλαμβάνονται όπερες, ύμνοι και τραγούδια.
Έγινε δάσκαλος μουσικής στο Σχολείο θηλέων του Αγίου Παύλου (St Paul's Girls' School) και μουσικός διευθυντής του κολεγίου Morley το 1907, κρατώντας και τις δύο θέσεις μέχρι την συνταξιοδότησή του.[2]
Ήταν αδελφός του ηθοποιού του Χόλυγουντ, Έρνεστ Κόσσαρντ και πατέρας της συνθέτιδος και μαέστρου, Ίμοτζεν Χολστ, η οποία έγραψε και μία βιογραφία του το 1938.[4]
Το πραγματικό του όνομα ήταν Gustavus Theodor von Holst αλλά αφαίρεσε το «von» από το όνομα λόγω των αντιγερμανικών αισθημάτων στην Βρετανία κατά την διάρκεια του Α' Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου, κάνοντάς το επίσημο το 1918.[5][6]
Επιλογή έργων
από μέλη της ομάδας
"Ακούτε
Κλασική Μουσική; Εγώ ακούω."
Christos Sipsis
Gustav Holst - The Planets, Op. 32 (1914 - 1916)
ολοκληρωμένο
Eddy Kouyioumdjian
Gustav Holst - The Planets Op.32 Jupiter
Alexis Zorbas
Gustav Holst - Hymn to Dionysus, Op 31 No. 2 (1913)
Kosmas Pavlopoulos
HOLST - Mars from "The Planets Suite"
Aglaia Raptou
Gustav HOLST: St. Paul's Suite (I. Jig, II. Ostinato)
Tanja Pavlovic
I Love my Love - Gustav Holst
Abakis Christos
Gustav Holst - A Somerset Rhapsody, Op. 21 No. 2 (1907)
Zafeiria Partheni
Hymn to the Waters - Etherea Vocal Ensemble
gustav holst dance of the spirit of water
Gianni Christopoulos
Allegro con brio Holst Symphony F majour op8
Stratis Vagis
Gustav HOLST: St. Paul's Suite (I. Jig, II. Ostinato)
Gustav HOLST: St. Paul's Suite (III. Intermezzo, IV. Finale)
Gustavus Theodore Holst
St. Paul Suite Op. 29 #2
Gustavus Theodore von Holst (he dropped the "von" during World War I in response to anti-German sentiment), a highly original and inventive composer, was born in Cheltenham, England in 1874. His grandfather was Gustavus von Holst of Riga, Latvia, a composer of elegant harp music who moved to England, married an Englishwoman, and became a fashionable harp teacher. Gustav's father Adolph, a pianist, organist, and choirmaster, taught piano lessons and gave recitals; his mother was a singer who died when Gustav was only eight. Holst was a frail asthmatic child whose first recollections were musical; he was taught to play the piano and violin, later changing to the trombone, and began to compose when he was about twelve.
Holst met Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1895 while they were students at the Royal College of Music and the two remained lifelong friends, although there is little similarity in their music. They depended heavily on one another for lifelong support and assistance. Vaughan Williams introduced Holst to folk songs, which pleased and surprised him with their beauty, and to plainsong hymns, which Holst loved throughout his life.
In those days of no royalties or large performing fees, Holst, finding it difficult to earn a living performing and composing, took posts as a music teacher. After the success in 1918 of The Planets, he found it much easier to get his music performed and published, nevertheless he remained a teacher until his death. He was considered an original and gifted teacher with lasting influence on his pupils, and he found himself a frequent and popular, albeit reluctant, lecturer who visited the United States twice, once in 1923 to lecture at the University of Michigan, and again in 1932 to spend a six-month period as teacher and lecturer at Harvard. After a lifetime of poor health exacerbated by concussion following a backward fall off the conductor's podium, from which he never fully recovered, he suffered a bleeding ulcer during his last stay in the U.S. and in 1934 he underwent surgery to relieve the condition. He died two days later, four months short of his sixtieth birthday. Gustav Holst is well-known today as the composer of The Planets, which remains wildly popular, but for few other compositions except his St. Paul and Brook Green suites.
Around 1904 Holst was appointed Musical Director at St. Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith, his biggest teaching post and one which he greatly enjoyed, remaining there until his death. When a music wing was added onto the St. Paul's Girls' School, a sound-proof teaching room was built for Holst. For the nearly twenty years of his remaining lifetime, this was where he wrote nearly all of his music. The St. Paul's Suite for the school orchestra is the first composition he wrote there. Originally written for strings, Holst added wind parts to include an entire orchestra if necessary.
The first movement begins with a robust "Jig" in alternating 6/8 and 9/8 time. Holst introduces a contrasting theme, then skillfully develops and blends the two themes. The "Ostinato," marked Presto, opens with a figure played by the second violins which continues throughout the movement, then a solo viola introduces the principal theme. In the "Intermezzo" a solo violin introduces the principal theme over pizzicato chords, then the solo viola joins the violin in a duet. After an animated section the original melody is again heard, now performed by a quartet of soloists. Finally the folksong "Dargason" is introduced very softly, then cellos enter playing the beautiful "Greensleeves" and the two folksongs are played together to end the suite.
*De Profundis Ya
Gustav Holst - First Choral Symphony, Op. 41 (1923 - 1924), Part. 1 - Prelude
Gustav Holst - First Choral Symphony, Op. 41 (1923 - 1924), Part. 2 - Song and Bacchanal
Gustav Holst - First Choral Symphony, Op. 41 (1923 - 1924), Part. 3 - Ode on a Grecian Urn
By 1923, Holst enjoyed a substantial reputation as a choral composer. That year he was chosen by the organizers of the 1925 Leeds Triennial Festival to write a new work for that event. Holst accepted the commission. Turning to the poetry of John Keats for his text, Holst utilized various unrelated passages that stimulated his musical imagination. For the introduction and first movement he chose stanzas from the chorus of shepherds in Endymion and from the Roundelay in Book IV of the poem. The second movement became a setting of the complete poem Ode on a Grecian Urn. The Scherzo uses much of "Fancy and Folly's Song" a short piece published in Extracts from an Opera. For the finale Holst chose the lines "Spirit here that reighenest" which the poet had written in a copy of Beaumony and Fletcher's plays; this was followed by extracts from the Hymn to Apollo, most of the Ode to Apollo and the ode Bards of Passion and of Mirth. The work thus became a four-movement choral symphony, with the vocal parts fully integrated in the overall musical texture instead of being added to the orchestra as an extra element.[2]
Draft of Endymion by John Keats, c 1818.
Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818. Beginning famously with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", Endymion, like many epic poems in English (including John Dryden's translations of Virgil and Alexander Pope's translations of Homer), is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter (also known as heroic couplets). Keats based the poem on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd beloved by the moon goddess Selene. The poem elaborates on the original story and renames Selene "Cynthia" (an alternative name for Artemis)
The First Stanza Of "Endymion"
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways:
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Gustav Holst - Hymn to Dionysus, Op. 31 No. 2
Gustav Holst - Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Op. 26 and Two Eastern Pictures (1911)
The years 1900 through 1912 could be thought of as Holst's "Sanskrit" period. Inspired by his Theosophist stepmother, Holst developed an interest in the religious literature and poetry of India in his mid-twenties, going so far as to learn the rudiments of the Sanskrit language at University College, London, so that he could make his own translations when he found those that were available unsuitable for his musical settings. His first effort in this vein was the opera Sita (1900-1906); later came works like the opera Sàvitri (1908), the choral work The Cloud Messenger (1909-1910), and the Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, written over the years 1908 through 1912.
The Rig Veda is a set of over 1000 hymns -- singing the praises of the sacred plant soma and gods like Varuna, Agni, and Indra -- brought by Indo-European speaking peoples into India somewhere around 1500-1000 B.C. Holst set 14 of these hymns in his four groups of Choral Hymns, which were fairly popular during his lifetime, but have seldom been performed since.
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