ABSTRACT
Histories of twentieth-century British music have never done full justice to Gustav Holst. He is usually paired with Ralph Vaughan Williams by virtue of their long friendship and shared interest in English folksong, but because of Holst’s premature death in 1934 and Vaughan Williams’s long and distinguished career, the pairing is never one of equals. This chapter focuses on a key moment in the history of twentieth-century Europe—the First World War—and on how Holst's participation led to his adoption of some of the tenets of the emerging formalist school of art criticism led by Roger Fry and Clive Bell. It argues that the First Choral Symphony clearly displays Holst's new aesthetic stance, and presents his vision of a modern composer's existence. Like many participants in the war, Gustav Holst seems to have returned a changed man. However, unlike the many veterans who streamed back from the front lines physically and emotionally scarred, he was invigorated by his experiences.
