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Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter

Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew

Status

Released

Release Date

Apr 12, 2011

Runtime

2h 17m

Genres

Documentary, Music

Original Title

Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter

Production Companies

Isolde Films

Director

Tony Palmer

Description

The great composer of The Planets, Gustav Holst also taught himself Sanskrit, lived in a street of brothels in Algiers, cycled into the Sahara Desert, and allied himself during the First World War with a ‘red priest' who pinned on the door of his church "prayers at noon for the victims of Imperial Aggression". He hated the words used to his most famous tune "I Vow to Thee My Country" because it was the opposite of what he believed, and died before the age of 60 - broken and disillusioned.