Gustav Holst in America, 1932: A Rare Interview

For the first six months of 1932, Gustav Holst was the visiting Horatio Lamb Lecturer to Harvard University. Holst had departed from Southampton on the SS Bremen on 8 January 1932 and arrived in New York on the evening of 13 January. Part of his trip included conducting, teaching and lecturing. He also found time to compose.

It is understood that the composer was “irked” by attention from press interviewers and photographers. One such interview was published in Musical America (10 February 1932, p.6). It was written under the by-line of the American writer and arts administrator, Quaintance Eaton (1901-92).

It is understood that the composer was “irked” by attention from press interviewers and photographers. One such interview was published in Musical America (10 February 1932, p.6). It was written under the by-line of the American writer and arts administrator, Quaintance Eaton (1901-92).

THE VERY IDEA OF AN INTERVIEW spoils what might have been a good talk,” said Gustav Holst plaintively. “I never give them in England. And I am impossible.” Thereupon, the noted British composer, who is now visiting America to lecture at Harvard, and has thus laid himself open to the clamorous journalistic customs of this country, almost succeeded in proving his contention of impossibility as an interviewee—but not quite. For he will talk if urged—about gardens and lawns and walking trips. But not about his contemporaries. Not one word.

And as a further dash of cold water he said: “I have no opinions, you see. And few convictions.”

Transplant the man whose orchestral suite, The Planets, has perhaps made him best known here, from a quiet téte-a-téte to the head of a speaker’s table or a lecture platform, however, and this diffidence disappears. The inscrutable blue eyes behind their thick glasses grow warm with his subject (most often the art of composition, sometimes British music through the ages - still minus discussion of contemporaries), and the flow of speech has none of those hiatuses that an interviewer tries desperately to fill.

Anecdotes upon which his lips are sealed in the rare interviews he grants are told without reluctance in public, if he wants to make a point. There was, for example, the story in illustration of the snobbishness of the English in regard to their native musicians, which he told at the dinner given him in New York by the National Association of Organists.

Mr. Holst was once a trombonist, this being one of the musical activities of his younger days which he grouped under the general head of “doing anything and everything in music” when questioned privately, and which included study of the piano and organ.

“In the ’nineties,” he said (at the diner), “I was one of a little band that used to look for seaside jobs in the summer. One summer we had an English conductor, two-thirds of the men were English, and one-third foreign musicians. We got paid two pounds a week, no traveling expenses. The next summer we had a foreign conductor, were dressed up in uniforms with gold

braid, and billed as a foreign orchestra. Two-thirds of the players were still English, but the difference was this: we got paid three guineas a week and all expenses found.”

This modest gentleman, who so startlingly reverses the usual procedure of public shyness and private garrulity, is English through and through, but his name might puzzle genealogists.

“You are of German ancestry?” we questioned, having seen a parenthetical “von” before his father’s name.

“Now let’s thrash this out,” he replied, surprisingly communicative. “Holst is a Swedish name, and my family came originally from Sweden. But there was a migration to Russia, and my great-grandfather was born in Riga. Where the ‘von’ came from I do not know, but I have dropped it myself. I once met some von Holsts in this country who came from a German branch. But frankly, family trees, even my own, do not interest me very much,”

Another silence. “Your teaching?” This proved a venture into the void, despite the fact that he has long been noted for his pedagogical talent and has been music master in several well-known London schools. Particularly interesting has been his work with adult amateurs in Morley College, and he has been music master at St. Paul’s Girls’ School since 1905.

“Have I any theories, you mean? No, no theories. No fixed ones. It all depends upon the students. How can I set a formula and abide by it when every individual is different? Oh, you Americans, how you love to analyze everything!” This was said, not scornfully, but in amusement. Mr. Holst likes us very much. This is his third visit to America. The first, in 1923, was followed by another in 1929. On his first visit he conducted his Hymn to Jesus at the Ann Arbor Festival. The present one of six months’ duration has already included appearances as guest conductor with the Boston Symphony, [1] where he introduced his orchestral scherzo, “Hammersmith,” and led several of his other works.

Mr. Holst was greatly pleased at the news that Albert Stoessel [2] has rearranged the New York Oratorio Society program of March 14 to include his Two Psalms, for chorus, string orchestra and organ. The composer plans to come down from Cambridge [3] to hear the performance.

Other ties than musical ones bind him to this country. “I really came over also to see my brother, Ernest Cossart [4],” he confided. “He is an actor, playing in The Devil Passes, [5] on Broadway. He has a daughter, Mary, [6] who is in the New York production of Hay Fever. He has been here for more than twenty years.”

American ways interest this quiet Britisher. The open sweeps of country, rolling green lawns, miraculously without any of the exclusive walls and hedges which make an English walk so shut in, delight his soul and satisfy that longing for wide spaces which even an Englishman may feel.

“But there is one thing I do not understand,” he declared. “That is your avowed longing to do a great many things for which you say you have not time. I believe - now do not be angry - that if you really want passionately to do something, you will find time. I used to study Sanskrit in the train - I learned the alphabet, at least. Much good it did me, but I learned it. “Now, however, my attitude is far better than yours. I frankly admit I’m lazy when I don’t want to do anything very much. It saves so much wear and tear.”

But the man who has quietly gone on his way and won a name for himself as a composer and teacher is not lazy —he merely knows what he wants most and has very efficiently set about to get it, without any fuss. He cannot talk about it, but others can—and do.
Musical America (10 February 1932, p.6).

Due to illness Holst some of Holst’s activities in the States and Canada were curtailed. After recovering, he managed to fulfil some last engagements before setting sail for England on 26 May. He arrived back in Southampton on 2 June 1932 aboard the SS Europa.

Notes:
[1] The concert held at the Albee Theatre, Boston on Tuesday, 19 January 1932. It featured the St Paul’s Suite, A Somerset Rhapsody, The Perfect Fool ballet score, Hammersmith Prelude and Scherzo in its orchestral version and an arrangement of Bach’s Fugue a la Gigue. The concert opened with Holst’s favourite Haydn Symphony, E flat (No.99). The programme was repeated on the 22 and 23 of January.
[2] Albert Stoessel (1894-1943) was an American composer, conductor and violinist.
[3] This refers to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard University is based.
[4] Ernest Cossart was the stage name of Gustav’s brother. His birth name was Emil Gottfried Adolf von Holst (1876-1951). After war service with the Canadian Army, he appeared in musical comedy in London, in Broadway, New York and as a film actor in Hollywood.
[5] The Devil Passes was a play by Ben W. Levy. It opened in Broadway on 4 January 1932 and ran for 96 performances. Interestingly, it starred Sherlock Holmes icon, Basil Rathbone as the Rev. Nicholas Lucy.
[6] Gustav’s niece. Valerie Livingston (née von Holst) (1907-94). She appeared in Noel Coward’s Hay Fever under her stage name of Valerie Cossart.