This week marks the completion of the Holst Project catalogue and its launch on the Britten-Pears Foundation website http://www.brittenpears.org/research/collections/archive-collections. With over 8,000 individual catalogue records and numerous digital images, including the comprehensive set of Gustav Holst’s 338 letters, Imogen Holst’s 86 letters to various correspondents, and many of Imogen’s CEMA reports, and article and lecture…

I have recently completed the cataloguing of the last major section of the Holst Archive- the papers of G&I Holst Ltd. and the Holst Foundation, marking the beginning of the conclusion of the Holst Project. Throughout the process of sorting, weeding and arranging this section of the collection, it has become clear the sheer amount…

The Holst Archive Project is moving quickly towards completion- with just two months remaining before we launch the online catalogue. In the past few days, Imogen’s and Gustav’s papers have come to fruition and are very nearly complete, with the exception of Imogen’s fairly extensive collection of photographs, on which our team of project volunteers…

Imogen’s series of published and manuscript music of other composers, gifted to, used, edited, and kept by her, reflects a wide variety of characters, music, and movements in the arts world of the time. From English to German, Italian to Franco-Flemish, Dutch to Australian, Imogen collected the works of composers from around the world, as…

A few weeks ago, while cataloguing Gustav’s music manuscripts and wealth of published music, the title of one of his works repeatedly struck a dominant chord of interest with me; ‘Egdon Heath’. Memories were stirred of studying for my English Literature A-level a few years ago, the subject of which, perhaps one of Thomas Hardy’s lesser known…

I am currently in the midst of listing, cataloguing, and repackaging Gustav Holst’s series of published music- and what a task it is proving to be! The series consists of at least one copy of every published edition of Gustav Holst’s works (where present), including arrangements by others, and several annotated copies, full to the…

Full of entertaining anecdotes, startling impressions of foreign countries and their people, and honest musical critique (especially regarding his own compositions), Gustav Holst’s witty series of correspondence paints a picture not only of his own attitudes and experiences, but of those of 20th century English society as a whole. Writing during the disruptive period of…