June 25, 2019 – Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

June 2019

HOLST, Gustav (1874-1934). Autograph music manuscript signed (‘Gustav Holst’), the organ part from A Choral Fantasia, op. 51, n.d. (c. 1930-1931)

My mother (87), pianist, teacher (may the great spirit bless her), is selling these very rare Holst manuscripts to raise some money to get new windows in her house.

Christies auction of Valuable Books and Manuscripts in London on July 10, 2019 – Lots 584 and 585

Marcus

HOLST, Gustav (1874-1934). Autograph music manuscript signed (‘Gustav Holst’), the organ part from A Choral Fantasia, op. 51, n.d. (c. 1930-1931).
Estimate
GBP 6,000 – GBP 9,000
(USD 7,518 – USD 11,277)

3¼ pages, 298 x 235mm, bifolium, 13 two-stave systems in brown ink on 12-stave paper, autograph annotations and cancellations in pencil and pen throughout.

Gustav Holst and the Poet Laureate. A Choral Fantasia was originally conceived as an organ concerto, but later adapted by Holst into a striking work that incorporated his friend Robert Bridges’ poem Ode to Music. Autograph music manuscripts by Holst are rare at auction: only three have appeared in the last two decades. Described by Holst’s biographer as ‘impressively individual’, A Choral Fantasia features a concertante organ alongside brass, percussion and strings, a chorus and solo soprano. With the 1931 Three Choirs Festival in mind, Holst started work on the piece in 1930; the decision to set a selection of Robert Bridges’ verses from Ode to Music, composed for the Bicentenary Commemoration of Henry Purcell, took A Choral Fantasia in an unusual new direction. Holst conducted the piece himself when it was first performed in Gloucester Cathedral in 1931.

HOLST, Gustav (1874-1934). Annotated printed score, an organ arrangement for the ‘Chaconne’ movement from the First Suite in E-flat for Military Band, Op. 28, inscribed by Holst (‘ND from GH’), n.d. (1933)

7 pages, 305 x 240mm, autograph annotations in pencil and red crayon throughout, chiefly additional instructions for organ actions. Printed score for Henry Ley’s arrangement of ‘Chaconne’ for organ, London: Novello and Company, 1933 (leaves detached from wrappers and one another). Paper wrappers.

An organ arrangement from the First Suite for Military Band – a work that helped establish the artistic merit of music composed for band and encourage its critical acceptance – with Holst’s autograph annotations to aid the organist. Holst composed the First Suite for Military band in 1909, though the work did not receive its premiere at the Royal Military School of Music until 1920: on a much smaller scale than his grand composition The Planets, it was nevertheless one of Holst’s works that did achieve public recognition and success, and has been long established in the military band repertory.