Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst (September 21, 1874 – May 25, 1934) was an English composer and was a music teacher for over 20 years. Holst is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets. Having studied at the Royal College of Music in London, his early work was influenced by Maurice Ravel, Edvard Grieg, Richard Strauss, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, but most of his music is highly original, with influences from Hindu spiritualism and English folk tunes. Holst's music is well known for unconventional use of metre and haunting melodies.
Frank Zappa and Gustav Holst
In Ellen Oumano's Movies For A Desert Isle (1987), Zappa said: "In the case of The World's Greatest Sinner, the guy who produced it didn't like one piece of music I'd written, so he took an album of the London Philharmonic doing 'The Planets' by Gustav Holst, had it transferred to 35 mm, didn't even get a license, and stuck it in the movie in the place where he wanted it. He didn't give any credit in the film, so I've got my name on it as the composer on the picture. I got this big shock when I went to the premiere and suddenly there was "Mars, the Bringer of War, da-da-da-da" coming out in this one scene." [1]
A snippet from "Jupiter: Bringer of Jollity" from Holst's "The Planets" can be heard at the start of Zappa's track Invocation & Ritual Dance Of The Young Pumpkin on Absolutely Free (1967).
- "Finally this year I'm going to get some orchestra performances and it's going to be in Berlin. That will happen in July, and for two weeks after that we'll be recording in Czechoslovakia. I'm taking my recording truck over there to do it. This truck has 100 inputs. The concert will be 'Golden Age' by Shostakovitch and three movements from 'The Planets' and that will be the first half of the show and the second half will be my stuff plus my band."- Frank Zappa, 82/06, Steven Rosen, Record Review, June 1982.
