Editing Gustav Holst (section)

===Style===
Holst's absorption of folksong, not only in the melodic sense but in terms of its simplicity and economy of expression,<ref>Short, p. 346</ref> helped to develop a style that many of his contemporaries, even admirers, found austere and cerebral.<ref name=H664>Holst (1980), p. 664</ref><ref name=OCM>{{cite web|last= Kennedy|first= Michael|author-link= Michael Kennedy (music critic)|title= Holst, Gustav|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e3305?q=Gustav+Holst&search=quick&pos=2&_start=1#firsthit|publisher= Oxford Companion to Music Online edition|accessdate= 14 April 2013|archive-date= 20 September 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200920112812/https://www.oxfordreference.com/documentid/acref-9780199579037-e-330521/#firsthit|url-status= live}}{{subscription required}}</ref> This is contrary to the popular identification of Holst with ''The Planets'', which Matthews believes has masked his status as a composer of genuine originality.<ref name=grove/> Against charges of coldness in the music, Imogen cites Holst's characteristic "sweeping modal tunes mov[ing] reassuringly above the steps of a descending bass",<ref name=H664/> while [[Michael Kennedy (music critic)|Michael Kennedy]] points to the 12 [[Humbert Wolfe]] settings of 1929, and the 12 Welsh folksong settings for unaccompanied chorus of 1930–31, as works of true warmth.<ref name=OCM/>

Many of the characteristics that Holst employed — unconventional [[time signatures]], rising and falling scales, [[ostinato]], [[bitonality]] and occasional [[polytonality]] — set him apart from other English composers.<ref name=grove/> Vaughan Williams remarked that Holst always said in his music what he wished to say, directly and concisely; "He was not afraid of being obvious when the occasion demanded, nor did he hesitate to be remote when remoteness expressed his purpose".<ref>Quoted in Short, p. 347</ref> Kennedy has surmised that Holst's economy of style was in part a product of the composer's poor health: "the effort of writing it down compelled an artistic economy which some felt was carried too far".<ref name=OCM/> However, as an experienced instrumentalist and orchestra member, Holst understood music from the standpoint of his players and made sure that, however challenging, their parts were always practicable.<ref name=Short336/> According to his pupil [[Jane Joseph]], Holst fostered in performance "a spirit of practical comradeship&nbsp;... none could know better than he the boredom possible to a professional player, and the music that rendered boredom impossible".<ref>Gibbs, p. 25</ref>