Gustavus Theodore von Holst (he dropped the "von" in 1918) was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1874. He died in 1934, four months short of his sixtieth birthday, from a concussion suffered in a backward fall from the conductor's podium, from which he never fully recovered.. His grandfather, Gustavus von Holst of Riga, Latvia, a composer of elegant music for the harp, moved to England and became a fashionable harp teacher. Holst's father Adolph, a pianist, organist and choirmaster, taught piano lessons and gave recitals; his mother, who died when Gustav was only eight, was a singer. …
