In 1991, I was a fourteen-year-old trombone player sitting on the floor of my local library, digging through Imogen Holst’s biography of her father. Although I had been playing since I was nine, I was still figuring out my instrument, and Gustav Holst’s music was a revelation to me. For the first time, I was playing music that felt like it was actually written with the trombone in mind, rather than just as an afterthought wind band arrangement.
As I learned about Gustav Holst, I found more than just a composer whose music I liked; it was like I found a mentor… a kindred spirit. Growing up with poor eyesight, shy, and quirky, I saw my own aspirational goals reflected in Holst’s life. He was a man who transformed physical limitations and a quiet, unassuming nature into something profound. He was geeky, kind, friendly, dedicated. His incredibly expressive music really hooked me.
Like a lot of people, Jupiter was my gateway, but playing the First and Second Military Suites in high school band is what really solidified my obsession.
I found myself researching this period almost exactly a hundred years before my own life: learning about how Holst was weaving Sanskrit philosophy and English folk traditions into Western music. Learning about his friendship with Vaughan Williams, and feeling inspired through recordings of The Cloud Messenger, The Hymn of Jesus, and his Robert Bridges partsongs. For the rest of high school, these pieces were in heavy rotation in my Walkman right alongside Morrissey, The Beatles, Björk, and Heavy D.
Fast forward to college in 1995. The internet was still a new frontier of slow dial-up modems and “Under Construction” GIFs. Naturally, I went looking for Gustav Holst resources online, assuming I’d find the same depth I’d found in those library stacks years earlier.
There was absolutely nothing.
I did, however, stumble across a site dedicated to Holst’s great friend, Ralph Vaughan Williams. I emailed the webmaster and asked why there was no information on Holst. The reply I got was the dare that started all of this:
“This is a website about Vaughan Williams. If you would like a website on Holst, I suggest you build one yourself.”
So in February 1996, that’s exactly what I did. It began as winter break project in 1995 through my first college Winter Study as a handful of hand-coded HTML pages and has grown over three decades into The Gustav Holst Website: a labor of love and sheer geekdom built for a community of researchers, performers, and listeners.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 30 years. Whether you’re a serious researcher or just a random person who fell down a musical rabbit hole, please know that this site represents my personal commitment to keeping Holst’s music accessible to everyone. It remains a personal project dedicated to the less known perspectives of the man: the mystic, the teacher, and the composer who was always looking forward.
Thanks for visiting,
Kenric