Influences of Gustav Holst’s experiences as conductor-educator in his compositional practices for choir

Abstract

This study was concentrated on Gustav Holst’s chorus production to analyze it in parallel with the educational and artistic values he defended and with his work as a teacher and conductor. We observed in his conceptions the importance of Morris and Shaw’s socialist current as well as how he applied these values in his educational and compositional project. We studied Holst’s procedures based on other educators (Paulo Freire and Murray Schafer) also comparing them to some experiences applied in ECA-USP in the last 50 years, aiming to identify the gains such experiences can bring to the students and to the outside community. We brought the issue of including amateur singers to choral experiences emphasizing the way Holst used to target several audiences without affecting the musical quality of his compositions, enabling other composers to apply the compositional resources obtained by such practices. To illustrate our arguing we include some elements of the pieces This Have I Done for My True Love, The Song of the Blacksmith, 4th movement of the Six Choral Folksongs and The Hymn of Jesus. We also analyze here some productions and organizations of events, especially the 1911 revival of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, and the Whitsun festivals held in Thaxted between 1916 and 1918.