Gustav Holst, front left, next to composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, with, from left: Adeline Vaughan Williams, Vally Lasker, Nora Day, and a woman identified as Mrs. Longman. Photo courtesy of The Holst Society.
In Friday’s (3/29) New York Times, Hugh Morris writes, “As the world of classical music observes the 150th anniversary of Gustav Holst’s birth this year, ‘The Planets’ bears revisiting. If there’s a single work that dominates our understanding of him, it’s this colorful, exciting, slightly eccentric orchestral suite…. ‘The Planets’ has grown only more popular with time, on a journey from orchestral programming staple (featured at the BBC Proms 88 times since its first performance there in 1921) to cultural touchstone … to civic emblem in Britain…. ‘The Planets’ was composed and orchestrated between 1914 and 1917, and was first performed for the public in 1920. During that six-year period, he relied heavily on a group of supportive women … Holst enlisted [Jane] Joseph, as well as Vally Lasker and Nora Day, who were both music teachers at St. Paul’s, to act as his amanuenses. Because the neuritis affected his writing hand in particular, Holst once described the women as his ‘three right hands’; Imogen Holst, the composer’s daughter, described their role in completing the 198 pages of the full score as ‘invaluable.’… Sections of the ‘Planets’ manuscript are available online via the Royal College of Music’s archives, and they clearly show a similar collaborative process in action.”
