He eventually became an orchestral trombonist, after teaching composition at Stanford University for some time. In 1905, Holst was chosen as the Director of Music at the St. Paul's Girl's School in Hammersmith, just west of London, which he did for almost of the rest of his life. One of Holst's contemporaries and good friends was the noted composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. They often wrote letters, exchanging critiques and ideas. Holst had a wife, Isobel, and a daughter, Imogen.Holst's most famous work, The Planets, is a seven-movement orchestral suite. Each movement represents a different planet in our solar system. Since The Planets is a work based on astrology, the Earth is ignored in the movements. It should also be noted that this piece was also written before Pluto was discovered, thus it only contains seven movements. The first movement, Mars, the Bringer of War emphasizes bass and low brass using an unusual 5/4 rhythm. The greatest moment in war-torn Mars comes shortly before the end as the orchestra rises to a massive climax, supported by organ and gong. It is a moment of sheer terror, transformed into a still darker terror, as the same two-note motif is repeated in a lower register but still highly dissonant. This is the first 'spiritual' Bodine 3moment of the work, in my opinion: the wrath of God at the warring, sinful nature of Man and the consequences of this, as I see it. Holst brings the full horror of mechanized warfare to the listener face to face in this bleakest of all tone poems. Its face is unrepentant, unrelenting, and merciless and it offers us no hope of redemption. Thousands of pairs of jackbooted feet parade across the landscape, hurrying to their graves. Tanks pound cities into rubble. Bullets fly and bombs fall. Airplanes swoop low overhead. How surprising it is then, to learn that Holst completed this piece long before the opening of the First World War, before the invention of the tank, befo...
