Gustav Holst is probably a composer of whom you have heard of before, but don’t necessarily have a very clear picture of his overall oeuvre. His family was originally of Swedish origin (then called von Holst) who migrated to England in the mid-19th Century. Gustav was then born in Cheltenham in 1874, but had somewhat of a miserable childhood due to being oversensitive, having weak eyesight and suffering from asthma, not to mention neuritis in his hands which hindered his want of learning to play the piano. It was not until the late 1890s that he, after various temp jobs at playing the trombone (since piano playing proved impossible), managed to win an open scholarship at  Read the complete review