 One of Holst's great-grandfathers, Matthias Holst, born in Riga, Latvia, was a Baltic German; he served as composer and harp teacher to the Imperial Russian Court in St Petersburg.Matthias's son Gustavus, who moved to England with his parents as a child in 1802, was a composer of salon-style music and a well-known harp teacher.He appropriated the aristocratic prefix "von" and added it to the family name in the hope of gaining enhanced prestige and attracting pupils.