Editing Gustav Holst (section)

====Indian period====
Holst's interest in Indian mythology, shared by many of his contemporaries, first became musically evident in the opera ''Sita'' (1901–06).<ref name=H1>{{cite journal|last=Head|first=Raymond|title=Holst and India (I): 'Maya' to 'Sita'|jstor=944947|journal=Tempo|issue=158|date=September 1986|pages=2–7}} {{subscription}}</ref> During the opera's long gestation, Holst worked on other Indian-themed pieces. These included ''Maya'' (1901) for violin and piano, regarded by the composer and writer Raymond Head as "an insipid salon-piece whose musical language is dangerously close to [[Michael Maybrick|Stephen Adams]]".<ref name=H1/>{{refn|"Stephen Adams" was the assumed name of [[Michael Maybrick]], a British composer of Victorian sentimental ballads, the best known of which is "[[The Holy City (song)|The Holy City]]".<ref>{{cite web|title= Maybrick, Michael|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e6647|publisher= Oxford Dictionary of Music Online edition|accessdate= 6 April 2013|archive-date= 20 June 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210620115625/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199578108.001.0001/acref-9780199578108|url-status= live}}{{subscription}}</ref>|group=n}} Then, through Vaughan Williams, Holst discovered and became an admirer of the music of [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]],<ref name=HolstEB>{{Britannica|269664}}</ref> whom he considered a "model of purity" on the level with Haydn,<ref>Short, p. 61</ref> another composer he greatly admired.<ref>Short, p. 105</ref>

The combined influence of Ravel, [[Hindu]] spiritualism and English folk tunes<ref name=HolstEB/> enabled Holst to get beyond the once all-consuming influences of Wagner and Richard Strauss and to forge his own style. Imogen Holst has acknowledged Holst's own suggestion (written to Vaughan Williams): "[O]ne ought to follow Wagner until he leads you to fresh things". She notes that although much of his grand opera, ''Sita'', is "'good old Wagnerian bawling'&nbsp;... towards the end a change comes over the music, and the beautifully calm phrases of the hidden chorus representing the Voice of the Earth are in Holst's own language."<ref>Holst (1986), p. 134</ref>

According to Rubbra, the publication in 1911 of Holst's Rig Veda Hymns was a landmark event in the composer's development: "Before this, Holst's music had, indeed, shown the clarity of utterance which has always been his characteristic, but harmonically there was little to single him out as an important figure in modern music."<ref name=r30>Rubbra, p. 30</ref> Dickinson describes these [[Vedas|vedic]] settings as pictorial rather than religious; although the quality is variable the sacred texts clearly "touched vital springs in the composer's imagination".<ref>Dickinson (1995), pp. 7–9</ref> While the music of Holst's Indian verse settings remained generally western in character, in some of the vedic settings he experimented with Indian ''raga'' (scales).<ref name=H2>{{cite journal|last=Head|first=Raymond|title=Holst and India (II)|jstor=944789|journal=Tempo|issue=160|date=March 1987|pages=27–36}} {{subscription}}</ref>

The chamber opera ''[[Savitri (opera)|Savitri]]'' (1908) is written for three solo voices, a small hidden female chorus, and an instrumental combination of two flutes, a cor anglais and a double string quartet.<ref name=H3>{{cite journal|last= Head|first= Raymond|title= Holst and India (III)|jstor= 945908|journal= Tempo|issue= 166|date= September 1988|pages= 35–40}} {{subscription}}</ref> The music critic [[John Warrack]] comments on the "extraordinary expressive subtlety" with which Holst deploys the sparse forces: "...&nbsp;[T]he two unaccompanied vocal lines opening the work skilfully convey the relationship between Death, steadily advancing through the forest, and Savitri, her frightened answers fluttering round him, unable to escape his harmonic pull."<ref name=dnb/> Head describes the work as unique in its time for its compact intimacy, and considers it Holst's most successful attempt to end the domination of Wagnerian [[chromaticism]] in his music.<ref name=H3/> Dickinson considers it a significant step, "not towards opera, but towards an idiomatic pursuit of [Holst's] vision".<ref name=D20>Dickinson (1995), p. 20</ref> Of the Kālidāsa texts, Dickinson dismisses ''The Cloud Messenger'' (1910–12) as an "accumulation of desultory incidents, opportunistic dramatic episodes and ecstatic outpourings" which illustrate the composer's creative confusion during that period; the ''Two Eastern Pictures'' (1911), in Dickinson's view, provide "a more memorable final impression of Kālidāsa".<ref name=D20/>