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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
The subject of modernism in early 20th-century British music is rarely examined: partly because it is often thought that British composers were not interested in the Modern Movement before World War I, and partly because in discussing Modernism (a convenient umbrella term for the whole cultural avant-garde whose components included Expressionism, Futurism, Primitivism and Surrealism) one must be prepared to engage subjects which, in this country, are normally considered Verboten. There is no doubt, for instance, that the development of the Modern Movement on the Continent was partly inspired by a widespread awareness of Theosophy, and the interest, which it encouraged, in such esoteric areas as Indian philosophy and astrology. In this article I want to look at this aspect of Modernism in relation to Gustav Hoist, and especially in The Planets (1914–16): his, and British music's, first striking testament to the Modernist outlook. The very bases of this work are Hoist's understanding of astrology, his friendships of the time, and his Theosophical upbringing.
1 Quotations from Blavatsky, E., Preface to The Secret Doctrine, London, 1888 Google Scholar. For the general fascination with Indian culture at the turn of the century see my article ‘Holst and India (I), Maya to Sita ’ in Tempo 158 (09 1986), especially pp. 2–4 Google Scholar. The wider significance of the late-19th-century resurgence of esoteric ideas as background to a surprisingly wide range of 20th-century music has yet to be systematically studied, though some recent writers (eg Robert Orledge, Roy Howat) have recognized its importance as a formative influence on Satie, whose Rosicrucianism is well known, and Debussy (33rd Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Prieuré de Sion), who certainly studied Hermetic philosophy, astrology and numerology, which bore fruit in his use of Golden Section.
2 ‘Gustav Holst's religious ideas were based on Buddhism, and he believed in detachment from love and hate, pleasure and pain. This influence reached him and me from the same source when he was in his late teens.…’: letter from Holst's brother von Holst, Matthias R. to Music and Letters (32/3, 07 1951, p.302)Google Scholar. (Matthias incidentally contradicts Imogen Holst's assertion that the origin of Holst's neuritis was in his over-practising. He asserts it was due to music-copying to earn enough to buy meals in his youth.)
3 ‘He was a real lover of mankind and of the struggling man. I so well remember his saying how much he respected and admired the courage of the city dweller and even the city plants trees and flowers’. Previously unpublished letter from Megan Foster, a singer and friend of Holst, to Diana Oldridge (neé Awdrey), 27 July 1976.
4 Stein, Erwin, ed., Arnold Schoenberg Letters (London: Faber 1964), p.254 Google Scholar. See also Reich, Willi, Schoenberg: a Critical Biography (London: Longman 1971), pp.250–2Google Scholar. Recently Louis Krasner wrote to me (letter dated 20 June 1993) that Adler's violin playing was ‘simply divine’ and ‘all of artistic and cultural Vienna came to him for counsel’. Krasner is also quoted on Adler as an astrologer in Poole, Geoffrey, ‘Alban Berg and the Fatal Number’, Tempo 179 p.2 Google Scholar. Adler was also a teacher of Hans Keller.
5 See Foulds's, Music To-day (London: Ivor Nicolson & Watson, 1934), p.276 Google Scholar, where he praises Holst's Planets as a work able to stand comparison ‘with any contemporary composition in the whole world of music’. On Foulds in general see MacDonald, Malcolm, John Foulds and His Music (Pro/Am Press and Kahn & Averill, 1989)Google Scholar, and the recent Lyrita CD (SRCD.212) containing his revolutionary Mantras (1919–30) for orchestra.
6 Quoted in Short, Michael, Gustav Holst: The Man and His Music (Oxford, 1990) p.223 Google Scholar.
7 Ibid., p.447.
8 Bax, Clifford Inland Far (London, 1925) pp.225–6Google Scholar.
9 Bax, Clifford Ideas mid People (London, 1936) p.54 Google Scholar. Holst had a long friendship with the mathematician and well-known astrologer Vivian E. Robson. Two of Robson's book are now at the Holst Birthplace Museum in Cheltenham. One, A Student's Text-Book of Astrology (London, 1922)Google Scholar is inscribed ‘with best wishes’ from the author; the other, A Beginner's Guide to Practical Astrology (London 1931)Google Scholar, is inscribed ‘To Gustav Holst the inspirer of this book with kindest regards 23 April 1931’.
10 Ideas and People, pp.60–1.
11 Information from Theosophical Year Book (London, 1938)Google Scholar and The Theosophist, October 1933.
12 Published by The Quest, 1920 and reprinted by Imogen Holst in Gustav Holst: A Biography (Oxford, 1969), pp. 194–204.
13 Holst's copy (now in the Birthplace Museum) is of the 1921 edition. But Holst was always lending his books to others, so it seems as is this was a replacement copy: the fact that Leo refers to Mercury as ‘the Winged Messenger’ suggests Holst knew the book much earlier.
14 The Art of Synthesis London 1912 Google Scholar, reprinted 1978.
15 From The Glasgow Herald, 1926, quoted in Short, , op.cit., p.121 Google Scholar.
16 Programme note for a performance of The Planets given during the Holst festival at Cheltenham, 22 March 1927.
17 Just one of the many original examples of Holst's orchestration which cannot be discussed further here. In 1914, in his book on orchestration, Cecil Forsyth had written that one does not use the gong because it ‘reminds one of dinner’.
18 Capell, Richard ‘Gustav Hobt III’, Music and Letters, 01 1927, p.77 Google Scholar.
19 As far as I am aware, this observation was first made by Malcolm MacDonald in a programme-note for the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1987.
20 The subject of Holst's interest in Tarot has not been explored before but the symbolic nature of the cards would have appealed to him. A.E. Waite, who published a book on the Tarot in 1910 and designed a classic pack still in widespread use, was also a member of The Quest. Holst's opera The Perfect Fool has two characters who are to be found in the Tarot: The Fool and The Wizard (i.e. Magician) – but the Princess may also be derived from the Tarot as well. Is this why Marion C. Scott, who knew Holst, explained the Uranus movement in terms of the Tarot card ‘The Falling Tower’? See The Listener, 18 May 1944, p.561, and British Music of Our Time ed. Bacharach, A.L., (London, 1946) p.53 Google Scholar.
21 Nevertheless in 1992 astrology was proscribed by the Roman Catholic Church.
22 Holst, Imogen, The Music of Gustav Holst (Third Edition, Oxford, 1986), p. 143 Google Scholar.
