Imogen Holst: A Life in Music. Ed. by Christopher Grogan.

Abstract

The new biography of Imogen Holst is published by Boydell in conjunction with the Holst Foundation and the Britten–Pears Library as the seventh volume of the Aldeburgh Studies in Music series, edited by the Britten–Pears Librarian Christopher Grogan. This substantial and lavishly illustrated tome is a standard life and works biography with a very large difference. In the centre of this book is a transcript of Imogen’s Aldeburgh Diary, a daily documentation of her first eighteen months (September 1952–March 1954) as Benjamin Britten’s amanuensis. As the daughter of Gustav Holst and later Benjamin Britten’s amanuensis and close friend, Imogen Holst was connected with two of the most important figures in twentieth-century English music. The complexity and contradictions inherent in her relationships with these men deepen her importance to the historiography of British music, especially when we acknowledge her role as the arbiter of her father’s legacy and early biographer of her mentor. These issues often lead us to overlook Imogen’s own varied and fascinating musical life, including her early promise as a composer, leadership role in the folk dance movement, years working for the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), and teaching at Dartington Hall.