'The Gustav Holst Way' is the first guidebook to describe the 35-mile rambling route across the Cotswolds to celebrate the life and work of the composer Gustav Holst. Published exactly 100 years after Holst began work on The Planets, the route visits many of the places that were important to the young Holst as his musical career took wing. Among the highlights are the house in Cheltenham where he was born (now the Holst Birthplace Museum) and several venues in the Cotswolds where he played, conducted and taught music. The richly illustrated guidebook divides the walk into five easy/moderate sections (with four optional detours) and includes detailed maps, points of historical interest and all the practical information you need to follow in Gustav Holst's footsteps from Cranham to Wyck Rissington. The Holst Birthplace Museum Gustav Holst, one of England's greatest composers, was born in a Regency terraced house in Cheltenham in 1874. The house has been carefully restored and converted into a 'living museum' that captures the atmosphere of the era, both above and below stairs. The most eye-catching of the museum's collection of 3,000 items is the piano on which Holst composed The Planets, as popular as ever nearly 100 years after it was published. The museum, at 4 Clarence Road, Cheltenham. Step inside the Museum and see the piano Holst used to compose The Planets. Find out how he developed into a world-class composer by examining and listening to original manuscripts written when he was a schoolboy in Cheltenham. Experience what life was like 'above and below stairs' for his modest middle-class family and their servants through Regency and Victorian period rooms. Imagine yourself as a Victorian child, playing in the nursery. Lose yourself as you listen to the opening bars of Mars -
Reviews
New walking guidebook pays homage to composer Gustav Holst By Gloucestershire Echo | A CENTURY after composer Gustav Holst started work on his famous work The Planets, a Cheltenham museum has published a walking guidebook in his honour. The Gustav Holst Way is a 35-mile rambling route across the Cotswolds that was laid out by volunteers at the Holst Birthplace Museum. The richly-illustrated book, with numerous photographs and maps charting the five contrasting sections of the route between Cranham and Wyck Rissington, is partly a conventional guide for walkers and partly a homage to Gustav Holst, who was a keen walker himself and had a lifelong love of the Cotswolds. Walking for Holst was both a pleasure and a necessity; as a young man whose first job - as the organist at Wyck Rissington church - earned him only GBP4 a year, he was invariably unable to afford the bus or train fare home. The budding composer would often take his trombone with him to practise his skills in the sparsely populated hills. On one occasion he was chased off a field by an angry farmer who blamed him for alarming the ewes. and making them lamb too early. The route picks out important landmarks in Holst's early life, including his birthplace - now the museum - and several places where he played, taught and composed music. The guidebook, has been written by former BBC and Sky News journalist Frank Partridge



Book Information
ISBN 9781874192862
Author Frank Partridge
Format Paperback
Page Count 64
Imprint Reardon Publishing
Publisher Reardon Publishing
Weight(grams) 160g
Dimensions(mm) 210mm * 148mm * 5mm