The year 1930 turned out to be one of the most productive years that Holst ever had. In January, he was finishing up work on his chamber opera The Tale of the Wandering Scholar, Op. 50 [H175]. Its libretto was written by Clifford Bax. The action is based on a vignette from the novel The Wandering Scholars by the Irish poet and playwright Helen Waddell (1889–1965). This underperformed twenty-five-minute opera, Holst's last and shortest, features four vocalists and chamber orchestra forces that can be characteristically reduced to a woodwind quintet, a string quartet, and string bass.

After touring the Netherlands during St. Paul's Girls’ School's Easter break, Holst settled into composing A Choral Fantasia, Op. 51 [H177] for soprano, SATB chorus, organ, strings, and brass. Although panned by the critics at the time, the work is seen today as one of the two crowning achievements of Holst's choral output, the other being the First Choral Symphony from six years earlier.

There were two particularly noteworthy orchestra concerts during the early part of the year. The first, on February 24, featured Holst conducting the orchestral version of Bach's Fugue à la Gigue in Cheltenham. The second, a Royal Philharmonic Society concert on April 3 at Queen's Hall, featured the premiere of his Double Concerto, Op. 49 [H175] for two violins, played by sister Hungarian violinists Adila Fachiri and Jelly D’Aranyi. The first and last movements each quote a passage from his Terzetto.