Music Appreciation: Gustav Holst

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Germany on February 23, 1685. He expressed an interest in music at an early age. While his mother encouraged this love of music, his father, George Handel, was not supportive of him pursuing music as a career, and pushed him towards a career in law. However, when Handel was 9, a duke heard him playing the organ and persuaded his father to let Handel study under Friedrich Zachow (the organist at the Liebfrauenkirche at Halle) who instructed him in the organ as well as composing. Handels’ father died when he was 12, leaving him as the only son of that marriage. This put more responsibility on Handel to maintain his family, but it also relieved most of the objection of his music studies. In

When thinking of composers, whose works changed the world of music forever, many names may come to mind. Among those on that list, both Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel are figures whose effect on music has been felt worldwide. Born in the same year, these composers have much in common and many differences that illustrate their importance to their era and music as we see it today. Their individualism and creativity influenced much of their time and together, their works defined the Baroque Period as we know it today.

Romantic music inspired two smaller movements: nationalistic music and music about legends. Richard Wagner (1813-1883) is a German composer who wrote many pieces on the basis of a story or myth. He revolutionized opera through creativity, discontent with musical formulas and his focus on drama.

An Austrian composer and performer who showed astonishing precocity as a child and was an adult virtuoso, musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria Pertl in Salzburg, Austria on January 27, 1756. Leopold Mozart was a successful composer and violinist and served as assistant concertmaster at the Salzburg court. Mozart and his older sister Maria Anna "Nannerl" were the couple's only

Music derived from astrology is surprisingly rare. The ancient Greek philosophers, whatever their intellectual attitudes towards astrology may have been, were certainly not ignorant of astrological teachings and ideas. It was they, after all who put forward the idea of the "Music of the Spheres", the idea that these vast objects twirling around and whirling through space, must have hummed a tone as they went along their courses, much as a ball spun on a string will whistle. They knew of seven planets: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Not surprisingly, western music evolved with seven-tone scales. Music and astrology come together again in this suite devoted to the seven planets, though Uranus

Gustav Holst was a British composer born in Cheltenham in 1874. “The Planets” nearly took Gustav two years to compose because he had other jobs on the side, like teaching, which he did almost his entire life. He believed that “The Planets” wasn’t his best works, though it was an immediate success. Along with the success of “The Planets” his work load and his stress levels also rose. In 1924 he was ordered to take a break, by his doctor, in the country where he could compose his music without any problems or other stresses. Gustav Holst died on the 25th of May 1934 of congestive heart failure.

Some of the most well known composers came to be in the in the classical music period. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the composers, along with other greats of the time like Haydn and Mozart, which helped to create a new type of music. This new music had full rich sounds created by the new construction of the symphony orchestra.

Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was an English composer well known for his orchestral suite The Planets. Holst began his trip into the musical world as a young pianist. His father, Adolph Holst, was a skilled pianist who wanted Gustav to succeed at playing as he did. Gustav, however, was impaired by neuritis making it difficult to play for long hours. As Gustav aged he began trying to compose music instead. Gustav failed to gain scholarships to any colleges and his father, after hearing one of Gustav’s small town operettas, borrowed money to pay for his college. Gustav’s influences were pieces such as Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and Tristan and

The English composer, Gustav Theodore Holst, was one of the most important people with great contributions to English music.He was born on 21 September 1874 in Cheltenham, England.Inspired the love for music from his musician father, Adolph von Holst, Gustav began playing musical instruments at a very young age.He played both the piano and the violin.However, he was not as interested in playing violin as playing the piano although he was troubled with neuritis.Gustav also took up the trombone due to his father’s suggestion when he turned twelve.Having such a great talent and an inspiration for music but Gustav’s childhood was not really full of happiness.His mom was very weak so she died after giving birth to the second child.At that time, Gustav was only eight

Who is the composer (full name and dates)? List three points about his life and environment.

With The Planets, Op. 32, composed 1914-1916, Gustav Holst incorporates a wide array of cultural and scientific references to create musical characters for each of the planets in our solar system. The scientific connection is immediately clear simply by looking at how Holst chose to order the movements. While he does not specifically place the planets in order of distance from the sun, they still follow a pattern that clearly references their positions in space. Mars, Venus, and Mercury open the suite, being numbers 3, 2, and 1 from the sun (neglecting to count Earth, which does not appear). Following this are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, being numbers 4, 5, 6, and 7 in order. While an awareness of their scientific positions is

(2) Schubert was one of the most prominent composers in the Romantic era. He was the first composer to live off only the money he got from composing. He wrote many compositions during his short lifetime, especially art songs (“OnMusic”).

Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809. His father Abraham Mendelssohn was a banker, while his mum Lea Mendelssohn was a highly educated artist and musician. Mendelssohn first had his piano lesson from his mum, but soon he was sent to study with the best teachers at that time such as Marie Bigot and Ludwig Burger. He also took composition lessons with Karl

As a relevant example a musical artist named Gustav Ahr, or otherwise known as his

Ludwig Van Beethoven was one of the greatest musical composers of his time. Starting very young in his studies of music, he held many important positions they would develop him into the composer he became. Born in Bonn, Germany to a singer, he held his first position at the church. He later moved to Vienna where his composed several pieces, and even an opera. He created a new style of music, cyclic form.