Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by Gustav Holst

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English composer Gustav Holst.

Last updated on December 18, 2024.

Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed many other works across a range of genres, although none achieved comparable success. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss being most crucial early in his development. The subsequent inspiration of the English folksong revival of the early 20th century, and the example of such rising modern composers as Maurice Ravel, led Holst to develop and refine an individual style.

English - Composer | September 21, 1874 - May 25, 1934

Source: Wikipedia

I’ve learned what ‘classical’ means. It means something that sings and dances through sheer joy of existence.

Gustav Holst

Music-making as a means of getting money is hell

Gustav Holst

Failure is the most important part of an artist's training, and one you cannot afford to do without.

Gustav Holst

One of the advantages of being over forty is that one begins to learn the difference between knowing and realising.

Gustav Holst

The enormity of the universe revealed by science cannot readily be grasped by the human brain, but the music of The Planets enables the mind to acquire some comprehension of the vastness of space where rational understanding fails.

Gustav Holst

There is no room in music for the second-rate - it might just as well be the nineteenth-rate.

Gustav Holst

Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.

Gustav Holst

Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity.

Gustav Holst

Always ask for advice but never take it.

Gustav Holst

The Heavenly Spheres make music for us, The Holy Twelve dance with us, All things join in the dance! Ye who dance not, know not what we are knowing.

Gustav Holst