Harold Holt

Harold Holt (3 November 18853 September 1953) was an impresario in England from the 1920s to the early 1950s, who managed many of the great names in the classical music world. He was considered the leading concert agent of his time, His father was a Jewish diamond merchant. (The firm had been founded in 1876 by Schulz-Curtius to promote Richard Wagner's music in England. He later took Lionel Powell into partnership. ) Powell died suddenly in 1931, leaving Holt with a mountain of debts and a company to run.

The list of famous names Harold Holt managed was long. It included: Marian Anderson, Feodor Chaliapin, Ania Dorfmann, Ida Haendel, Josef Hassid, John McCormack, Dame Nellie Melba, the young Yehudi Menuhin (in his concerts with Sir Edward Elgar), Grace Moore, Vladimir de Pachmann, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Gregor Piatigorsky, Rosa Ponselle, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Paul Robeson, Richard Tauber, and Luisa Tetrazzini.

The legend that he scrubbed Enrico Caruso from his list after he refused an offer of $36,000 for 10 appearances is clearly false, as Caruso's career ended in 1920 and he died in the following year, before Holt was in business. However, Holt had made strong representations to Hassid's medical advisers that his genius was such that the world could not afford to lose him prematurely, and all must be done to cure him.

In consultation with her father, Harold Holt adjusted Ida Haendel's birth year from 1928 to 1923 to make it appear she was five years older than she really was. This was done in order to circumvent Covent Garden's rule prohibiting anyone aged under 14 appearing on stage. The incorrect birth year of 1923 has since appeared in many reference works.

He died on 3 September 1953, aged 67.