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Donald Macleod explores Imogen Holst’s time as a teacher at Dartington and then in India.

Imogen Holst was a significant part of the British classical music scene during the twentieth century. Holst was prominent as a composer, conductor, writer on music, teacher, administrator and artistic director. She also worked as an amanuensis to Benjamin Britten. As the daughter of Gustav Holst, Imogen was raised in an artistic environment, and her early aspirations were to be a dancer. She studied at the Royal College of Music where she won a number of prizes and awards, and developed a passion for British folksong. During World War Two, Holst travelled the UK to support cultural activities, and she established the famous music education centre at Dartington Hall in Devon. There followed an invitation to Aldeburgh where she would support Benjamin Britten for many years in his compositional activities. Holst later became an Artistic Director for the Aldeburgh Festival. She wrote many books, including studies of Britten and her father. In later in life, she was active in cataloguing her father’s compositions and preparing them for publication. Throughout this exceptionally busy career, including establishing the Purcell Singers and giving radio interviews, Imogen Holst continued to compose and wrote many works from choral pieces and folksong arrangements, to concertos and string quartets. Her considerable output as a composer is only just beginning to be appreciated, and throughout this series we also hear archive recordings of Holst in interview.

During World War Two Imogen Holst became a Music Traveller for CEMA, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts. Holst was free to go where she liked and do what she liked, encouraging others in music and the wider arts. Holst worked tirelessly and in 1942 she was forced to resign, due to exhaustion. Soon came an offer by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst to visit Dartington, where they wanted Holst to be instrumental in the setting up of educational activities. This was an opportunity for Holst to shape future teachers of music and, once again, she threw herself in with gusto. Once the course was up an running, there were daily performance opportunities for the students, and Holst was not only busy as a teacher, but also as a conductor. It was through this connection with the Elmhirsts that Holst also had an opportunity to visit India, to teach music and to learn about Indian culture too.

A shower among the birch trees (Six Pieces from Finland)
Duncan Honeybourne, piano

Crab-fish (Four Somerset Folk Songs)
Mailys de Villoutreys, voice
Anaïs Bertrand, voice
Lucile Richadot, voice

Mill Field (Four Easy Pieces)
Yue Yu, viola
Anthony Hewitt, piano

Suite for Strings
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Concert Orchestra
Alice Farnham, conductor

String Quartet No 1
The Brindisi String Quartet

Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
Tanya Houghton, harp
Graham Ross, director

Produced by Luke Whitlock