Gustav Holst lived at a time when the latter-day English musical renaissance was taking hold in his homeland, with composers seeking to break the chains of Germanic Romanticism and look toward expanding their own musical horizons. This Holst did in great fashion, adopting seemingly unrelated entities such as the words of Walt Whitman, Sanskrit literature, English folk tunes, astrology, and twentieth-century techniques into his compositions. But there were other influences as well, from writing down and incorporating Algerian oboe melodies to dealing with the constant criticism of his closest friend Ralph Vaughan Williams. In addition, Holst had to face and accept the reality of writing music for his students and other amateur groups that often featured instrumental contingencies that were less than complete. Sometimes this applied to professional ensembles as well; both versions of Hammersmith: A Prelude and Scherzo attest to this, offering options in instrumentation. It was a case of sacrificing the ideal for the practical.

Holst's wind works, particularly those for military and brass bands, have long since been acknowledged as staples of their respective core repertoires. These works are not islands in a sea of musical compositions but rather, important components in the continuum of the composer's life and work. They provide a legacy within the trajectory, in much the same way that many of his choral works do.

Here, then, is a complete listing of Gustav Holst's wind works. Yet, there is more. It is fitting to include the wind works of his daughter, Imogen Holst, as well, for starting with The Unfortunate Traveller, written heavily under her father's influence, and continuing through her editions of his wind works, she continued his legacy. Did it stop with her? No, of course not; it endures every time a performance of one of these works by either Holst takes place.