Boydell & Brewer Imogen Holst: A Life in Music: Revised Edition

Imogen Holst (1907-1984), the only child of Gustav Holst, was a composer and arranger of folksongs, writer on music, conductor, and administrator. She also acted as music assistant to Benjamin Britten, of whom she became a friend and close associate. She subsequently continued as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival until 1977, when she retired to devote more time to preparing a thematic catalogue of her father's music. This book offers the opportunity for a full assessment of Imogen Holst's life and achievements, both in her own words and through assessments by noted scholars. The backbone of the volume is the journal she kept at the start of her working association with Britten, from 1952 to 1954. Here she provides a unique insight into the professional and domestic life of a major composer, now published in full for the first time. Around these writings is woven a biographical narrative by Christopher Grogan and Rosamund Strode, the latter Holst's successor as Britten's music assistant and one of her closest colleagues and friends. Since the first publication of this study in 2007, a wealth of unseen archival material has surfaced, adding many new insights to our knowledge and understanding of Holst's early life and last years especially, and the opportunity has been taken to revise the biographical narrative in this paperback edition CHRISTOPHER GROGAN is Director of Collections and Heritage for the Britten-Pears Foundation. This paperback edition is updated to include new insights into Holst's life and work resulting from the discovery of important unseen archival materials. Autorid: Christopher Grogan