LEADER of the Can’t Sing Choir, pioneer of musical education for women, close collaborator with the notorious Red Vicar of Thaxted, involuntary composer of I Vow to Thee, My Country, and composer of Britain’s most recorded piece of music ever, Gustavus von Holst was born in Cheltenham on September 21, into a family of musicians and music teachers.
In his teens, he was employed as an organist and choirmaster. Physical frailties forced him to abandon the piano and take up the trombone instead. Earnings from that financed his studies in composition.
Except for one or two brief sabbaticals, paid for by wealthy patrons, Holst never worked as a full-time composer. To the very end of his life, he taught music at private schools, and for much of it, he was variously a trombonist in orchestras and theatres, college lecturer, church organist and choir leader.
