Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst is known almost entirely for one work, The Planets — and that work exists because Holst was, in his own words, "a remarkably skilled interpreter of horoscopes." Introduced to astrology on a 1913 holiday and to Theosophy years earlier by his stepmother, Holst taught himself Sanskrit at University College London so he could translate Hindu scripture directly rather than rely on existing English versions, producing operas and choral works based on the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Rig Veda. The Planets, composed between 1914 and 1917, sets not the mythology or the astronomy of the seven visible planets but their astrological character.
Learning a Language for Its Scripture
Holst's engagement with Eastern religious material began early and ran deep. His stepmother Mary was, as one biographer notes, "absorbed in theosophy," and while touring with the Carl Rosa Opera Company as a trombonist Holst read Max Muller's writings on comparative religion and grew fascinated by the Rig Veda. Unsatisfied with the available English translations, he enrolled at University College, London, in 1909 to learn Sanskrit from the alphabet up, working sentence by sentence with a dictionary despite having no formal training as a linguist.
The result was an unusual body of work: Sita (1899-1906), an opera based on the Ramayana; Savitri (1908), a chamber opera drawn from the Mahabharata; four sets of Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda (1908-1914); and The Cloud Messenger (1913), a setting of Kalidasa's Sanskrit poem the Meghaduta. His daughter Imogen, later his biographer, judged his own English verse translations naive in places but never vague.
Astrology, Not Astronomy
In 1913, holidaying in Spain with fellow composer Arnold Bax and his brother, the writer Clifford Bax, Holst was introduced to astrology and became - in Clifford's own account - "a remarkably skilled interpreter of horoscopes." He went on to cast charts for friends for the rest of his life and described astrology as his "pet vice." He also formed a lasting friendship with the astrologer and mathematician Vivian E. Robson, whose 1922 A Student's Textbook of Astrology is inscribed to Holst by the author, and whose 1931 A Beginner's Guide to Practical Astrology is dedicated "To Gustav Holst the inspirer of this book."
Composed between 1914 and 1917, The Planets gives each of the seven movements a distinct astrological character rather than a mythological or scientific one. He drew directly on Alan Leo's astrological writings while composing it. The sequence deliberately breaks astronomical order - Mars, nearer the sun than Jupiter or Saturn, opens the suite because astrologically it is the planet of conflict, setting the emotional arc rather than the orbital one.
I only study things that suggest music to me. That's why I worried at Sanskrit. Then recently the character of each planet suggested lots to me, and I have been studying astrology fairly closely.
— Gustav HolstOne Piece, An Entire Reputation
None of Holst's other works achieved comparable popularity, a fact that frustrated him during his lifetime. History proved him right to worry and wrong to mind: The Planets remains one of the most performed and recorded orchestral works of the twentieth century, its astrological premise so thoroughly absorbed into film-scoring convention that most listeners now encounter its musical vocabulary without any awareness of the astrology chart behind it.