Holst's great-grandfather, Matthias von Holst, was of Nordic origin, and came to England in 1802 from Riga, Latvia.

Holst's father, Adolph von Holst, was organist and choirmaster at All Saints ' Church in Pittville.

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 ).

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.

The music was cheap and repetitive and not to Holst's liking, and he referred to this kind of work as " worming " ( a pun on Wurm's name, which means " worm " in German ) and regarded it as " criminal ".

Holst's view was that Noel's philosophy was a " gospel of comic hate ", but he ceased to hold the music festival at Thaxted after three seasons, moving it to Dulwich.

The premiere was at the Queen's Hall on 29 September 1918, conducted by Holst's friend Adrian Boult before an invited audience of about 250 people.

Holst's use of orchestration was very imaginative and colourful, showing the influence of Arnold Schoenberg and other continental composers of the day rather than his English predecessors.

The orchestral premiere of The Planets suite, conducted at Holst's request by Adrian Boult, was held at short notice on 29 September 1918, during the last weeks of World War I, in the Queen's Hall with the financial support of Holst's friend and fellow composer H. Balfour Gardiner It was hastily rehearsed ; the musicians of the Queen's Hall Orchestra first saw the complicated music only two hours before the performance, and the choir for " Neptune " was recruited from pupils from St Paul's Girls ' School ( where Holst taught ).

Holst's original title ( clearly seen on the handwritten full score ) was " Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra ".

Although commonplace today, the effect bewitched audiences in the era before widespread recorded sound — after the initial 1918 run-through, Holst's daughter Imogen ( in addition to watching the charwomen dancing in the aisles during " Jupiter ") remarked that the ending was " unforgettable, with its hidden chorus of women's voices growing fainter and fainter ... until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence ".

Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before Holst's death, and was hailed by astronomers as the ninth planet.

Dedicated to the late Imogen Holst, Gustav Holst's daughter, it was first performed in Manchester on 11 May 2000, with Kent Nagano conducting the Hallé Orchestra.

* Piano duet ( four hands ) – An engraved copy of Holst's own piano duet arrangement was found by John York.

Dave Edmunds ' band Love Sculpture included the Mars movement on their 1970 album " Forms and Feelings ," though this was only included in the U. S. version of the album due to Holst's family preventing worldwide release of the track.

Permission to use pieces was sometimes denied by the composer's family or estate, as for instance with Gustav Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War.

Meyer's original plan for the score was to adapt Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets.

Controversy surrounded Holst's friendship with Noel, whose opinions grew progressively uncompromising, leading to his displaying the Red Flag and that of Sinn Fein in the church.

:: Stage 5: Violin bow episode including echo-slapping from the guitar ; interlude with Plant's ' instrumental voice '; Gustav Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War and return of the rhythm section

Mann's interest in English 20th century classical music saw him adapt Gustav Holst's Planets Suite, garnering an unlikely UK hit with a version of the " Jupiter " movement, with lyrics added, entitled Joybringer ( included on the 1973 album Solar Fire ).

Although commonplace today, the effect bewitched audiences in the era before widespread recorded sound — after the initial 1918 run-through, Holst's daughter Imogen ( in addition to watching the charwomen dancing in the aisles during " Jupiter ") remarked that the ending was " unforgettable, with its hidden chorus of women's voices growing fainter and fainter ... until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence ".

The year 2000 saw four major premières: Two Tributes for the London Sinfonietta ; Pluto, an addition to Holst's Planets, for the Hallé Orchestra and Kent Nagano, already widely performed ; Aftertones, for the Huddersfield Choral Society ; and Continuum, a large-scale work for soprano and ensemble commissioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group for Cynthia Clarey and Simon Rattle, with performances in London, Cologne, Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna and Birmingham.

He made a famous recording of Holst's The Planets with the Boston Symphony for Deutsche Grammophon, after learning the piece at the age of 70.

A full season with Bromley Symphony of Elgar's Second, Bruckner Seventh, Tchaikovsky Fourth and Holst's ' The Planets ' was performed.

However, the airing of the program was halted in March 1972, with a final Young People's Concert concentrating on Gustav Holst's The Planets.

The first notable and influential original symphonic work for band was Gustav Holst's First Suite in E-Flat, written in 1909.

Some of the most notable of these pieces are Holst's First Suite in E-flat and Second Suite in F, and Grainger's Children's March and Lincolnshire Posy among others.

Important soloistic parts in standard band repertoire for the E clarinet include the second movement of Gustav Holst's First Suite in E-flat for Military Band ( for two E clarinets ), also his piece ' Hammersmith ' ( similarly for two E flat clarinets ), Paul Hindemith's Symphony in B-flat for Band, and Gordon Jacob's William Byrd Suite.

These included Phase 4 Stereo recordings of Gustav Holst's The Planets and Charles Ives's 2nd Symphony, as well as an album entitled " The Impressionists " ( music by Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Fauré and Honegger ) and another entitled " The Four Faces of Jazz " ( works by Weill, Gershwin, Stravinsky and Milhaud ).

Col legno is used in the final movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Frédéric Chopin, which predates the more famous use in the " Dream of Witches ' Sabbath ", in the final movement of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, in the score of the film Alien by Jerry Goldsmith, as well as in " Mars, the Bringer of War " from Holst's The Planets, the first movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain.

Among English composers of the early-20th century there was some vogue for the use of a " bass oboe ", for example in Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets ( 1916 ), as well as in several works of Frederick Delius ( A Mass of Life, 1904-1905 ; Dance Rhapsody No. 1, 1908 ), Arnold Bax's Symphony No. 1 ( 1921 ), Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony ( 1919-1927 ) and Symphony No. 4 ( Das Siegeslied ), and supposedly in the original instrumentation of Ralph Vaughan Williams ' A London Symphony ( 1912-1913 ).

) As late as 1951 at the Leith Hill Festival, singers from the Anglican tradition objected to the words of Holst's partsong, which mention dance and religion together.

Holst's daughter Imogen, recorded that " At the time when he was asked to set these words to music, Holst was so over-worked and over-weary that he felt relieved to discover they ' fitted ' the tune from Jupiter ".

During the years 1920 – 1923, Holst's popularity grew through the success of The Planets and The Hymn of Jesus ( 1917 ) ( based on the Apocryphal gospels ), and the publication of a new opera, The Perfect Fool ( a satire of a work by Wagner ).

Also, from October 1969 to the song's last performance in May 1975 at the Earl's court shows, the violin solo and the solo section after would incorporate " Mars " from Gustav Holst's suite The Planets, accompanied by Plant's vocalisations.

The music includes Holst's theme as well as original material by Stroope.

It was also loosely inspired by " Mars, the Bringer of War " from Gustav Holst's The Planets.

" The concept was inspired by Gustav Holst's nearly century-old orchestral suite " The Planets.

Some of the songs are Elvis Presley records, while other parts of the soundtrack seems to be inspired by Gustav Holst's " The planets ".

Prior to the mid-20th century, the term " bass flute " was sometimes used, especially in Great Britain, to refer to the alto flute instead ( for example: the part for " bass flute in G " in Gustav Holst's The Planets ).

With composer Colin Matthews she edited scholarly editions of her father's works ( including four volumes of facsimiles ) and compiled A Thematic Catalogue of Gustav Holst's Music ( 1974 ).