Holst’s family came from Riga, but settled in England in the early 19 th century. Holst himself studied under Stanford at the Royal College of Music, and his student works were heavily influenced by Wagner. Only gradually did he develop the distinctive and highly original musical language for which we know him today, influenced among other things by English folksong (he and his friend Vaughan Williams were inveterate discoverers and collectors of folksong), Purcell and other newly-rediscovered English composers of the 16 th and 17 th centuries, and Hindu literature and philosophy (Holst taught himself Sanskrit in order to be able to read it). A further important factor in his development was his five years experience from 1898 as an orchestral trombonist - giving him an invaluable inside knowledge of how to use an orchestra effectively. Holst’s output is not large by the standards of some composers, but from 1903 to the mid-1920s the bulk of his time was taken up by teaching, leaving him only the weekends and School holidays for composing. He was an inspiring if unorthodox teacher, and besides appointments at St Paul’s Girls School, University College Reading, and the Royal College of Music, did notable work with amateurs, especially at Morley College.

His long apprenticeship as a composer culminated in The Planets, written between 1914 and 1916. This remains his best-loved work and is also the first work to demonstrate full confidence in dealing with extended forms. His best-known choral work, the spectacular Hymn of Jesus (1917) also dates from this period, as does the more contemplative Ode to Death (1919). This short work sets lines by Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass, and despite its somewhat forbidding title is an essentially consoling and uplifting work, treating death as a friend to be welcomed. Whitman’s poem commemorated the death of Lincoln, but Holst more probably had in mind the waste and futility of the Great War, then just ended.

The Ode starts with a quiet and dreamy summons to death, accompanied by pianissimo chords on wind and harp. This is broken into by a shout of praise "to the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, and for love, sweet love - but" (dying down again) " praise! Praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death." Much of the remainder is also jubilant in character (and frequently using the five-beats-to-a-bar rhythm which Holst so loved). It returns at the end, however, to the ethereal mood of the opening: "I float this carol with joy to thee, O death - come!", with a similarly quiet and magical accompaniment of wind, harp and celesta.