Henry Holst

Henry Holst was a Danish violinist and teacher born (in Saeby, Denmark) on July 25, 1899.  He spent quite a bit of time in England but is not related – as far as I know – to the other Holst.  He was probably the first violinist to play (in 1921 with the Berlin Philharmonic) three concertos in the same concert program – before Yehudi Menuhin, Henryk Szeryng, Szymon Goldberg, and Raymond Cohen did it.  (See comment below.)  Holst must have begun his violin studies while still very young but I don’t know how young nor with whom.  In 1913, he was admitted into the Royal Danish Academy of Music.  He was 14 years old.  His teachers there were Axel Gade (son of Niels Gade) and violinist/composer Carl Nielsen.  At age 18, he made his debut playing Henri Vieuxtemps’ first violin concerto, the longest violin concerto Vieuxtemps ever wrote.  He then studied further with Hungarian violinist Emil Telmanyi.  After that, he traveled to Berlin to study with Willy Hess, a German violinist who played far and wide during his career, including the U.S.  In 1923, Holst became concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic.  He was 24 years old.  He quit that post in 1931 and went to live in England where he taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music.  There, he founded the Henry Holst String Quartet which he disbanded in 1941 to start the Philharmonia Quartet which itself was disbanded in 1952.  He was also active as a soloist.  Holst gave the European Premiere of the Walton violin concerto, a work which had been championed by Jascha Heifetz for a time, in 1941.  Holst also gave the world premiere of the revised version of the concerto in 1944.  The Walton concerto is very seldom played now.  In 1945, Holst moved to London to teach at the Royal College of Music.  He was 46 years old.  Holst moved back to Denmark in 1954 where he taught at the Royal Danish College of Music.  I don’t know how many years he was there but it must have been quite a few.  Henry Holst died on October 19, 1991 at age 92, largely forgotten.