The generative threads of The Planets were spun at St Paul’s Girls’ School on Brook Green in Hammersmith, West London, the elegant Edwardian buildings where Gustav Holst served as the school’s first Director of Music from 1905 until his death in 1934.

He devised atonal and polytonal canons for the girls’ aural training. There was a superb female choir on hand, and colleagues whom he trusted could work from his dictation and try out his new ideas. His bright, well-heated soundproof room was where he wrote and rehearsed The Planets before its auspicious public debut in 1918 at the Queen’s Hall.

In a cupboard in that same room was found a leather-bound, engraved copy of the four-hands, one piano version, carefully prepared by Holst and his contemporaries on the staff. It is signed by the composer and credited to his devoted colleagues and amanuenses, Nora Day and Vally Lasker. It is well known that he often dictated compositions to these respected teachers when the painful neuritis from which he suffered for many years precluded normal writing.

York2 has a fine reputation as the 'duo with a difference', gained through John and Fiona's exploration of larger scale and contemporary scores alongside the rich and familiar duet repertoire. They have given concerts for societies and festivals in the UK and Australia, on BBC Radio 3, CBC TV, at the Salzburg Festival, and concertos at the Barbican Centre and South Bank in London.