Gustav Holst: The Planets Suite

[Jared]

I only own three Planets... and for me, that's enough, as I think that there will be very few works I keep more than three versions of.

Dutoit/ Montreal
Elder/ Halle
Tortelier/ BBC Phil

[fergus]

Of the ones I have heard that I didn't spot in your VT, I would advocate for Jurowski (a very recent recording) and Andrew Davis.

Note: a vast majority of my CDs are boxed up due to impending window replacement and redecoration. It could be a couple of months before I am reunited. But also I have kept my 'to be listened to pile' until last so I can have them close by...

Thank you for the recommendations Darren.

Gosh, I hope that you are not that long separated from your music Darren. I do not think that I could last for a couple of days from mine!!!

[fergus]

Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age

Movement highlights:

• first 26 measures of painful sounding, syncopated chords in harp and flute
• menacing theme underneath chords in first 26 bars, played by double basses
• stately trombone march after 26 measure intro
• long crescendo to climax, leading to an irresolute coda
• all instruments used to create chime effect in middle

This was the composer's personal favourite movement, and was by far the most original. The pain of Holst's severe neuritis (inflammation of a peripheral nerve or nerves) in his arm is symbolized by the jerky, laboured, grinding chords in the famous opening passage. These undulating, disorienting chords which open “The Bringer of Old Age” portray the ticking of a clock, presenting a kind of meditation on the disease, death, and suffering that are an inevitable part of life. There is a profound hollowness and sense of defeat in the harmony of the opening chords, and an even deeper despair in the motif sounded beneath them by the double basses. The basses struggle in their lowest registers to present a theme, but it is frail and limited. But the powerful transformation that follows suggests the elderly voice of wisdom which is soon heard in the B-minor theme for the trombones, and at the end the mood is one of acceptance, reconciliation patient wisdom and consequent serenity; an overall theme of pain, despair, and inevitability is felt up until the unusual character switch at the coda to acceptance.

Unlike the previous movements, which are static in the sense that each depicts various aspects of a single trait, Saturn, the bringer of old age moves through a series of 'events' that bring the music to conclusions not envisioned at the beginning. The quiet opening has the deliberate pace of a steady journey. Trombones are heard in a sad procession, and then, from a remote distance, the flutes begin their unearthly approach. The sound seems to come from another world and gradually overwhelms the present world. At the climax of the long crescendo the bells suddenly clang out and the whole orchestra clashes with them in protest. However, this moment of climax is also an arrival as the sounds fade, become mellow and resigned, and the movement ends in tranquillity.

A threatening clock ticks inexorably as the baseline, revealing both the dignity and frailties of old age.

Saturn is lazy, lame, and has coarse hair.

[fergus]

Uranus, The Magician


Movement highlights:

• huge trombone/trumpet opening
• staccato "creeping" melody of bassoon/tuba/xylophone
• again, chime affect over main melody
• regimental march heard throughout

You can take as the figure of Uranus almost any caricature of a magician you have ever seen - preferably one with the tall pointed hat studded with stars, the flowing blue robe with voluminous sleeves, and the wand. He is invoked by Holst with a fortissimo on trumpets and trombones and a grotesque six-four dance. He is all sorcery and he begins to show his tricks immediately. His repertoire is vast and astonishing and at the climax of his demonstration he struts around pompously to a pompous tune. Flitting major and minor keys, the mood ominous and threatening, then cheeky and humorous, the story tells of an eccentric magician putting his upstart apprentice who tries to take control in his place. By way of encore he makes some mysterious incantations, suddenly (one guesses from the music) envelops himself in flames - and disappears.

The music for “The Magician” suggests the image of a wizard, reminiscent of Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice. This movement, providing a bit of comic relief to the suite, literally disappears, as in a puff of smoke. The adagio coda has a foreboding mystery, suggesting that the wizard had more serious intentions.

Uranus is eccentric, possessing a nervously organized temperament quite out of the common.

[james]

https://www.nch.ie/online/default.asp?d ... 84151BEEA9

"...
Rule Britannia!

In aid of St Agnes' School Violin and Orchestra Project

Monday 4th March, 8pm
Room: Main Auditorium
Prices: €15, €10
Concessions: €5
20% Discount for Friends of the National Concert Hall
20% Disount for Groups of 10 or more
Book your Meal Deal for this concert by adding the promo code MEALDEAL in the promo code box provided

Royal Irish Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra
Royal Irish Academy of Music Chorale
James Cavanagh, conductor

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies: Five Klee Pictures
Britten: The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra
Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music
Holst: The Planets

Universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has made a significant contribution to musical history through his wide-ranging and prolific output. The RIAM salutes its International Visiting Artist and Fellow over a series of workshops, talks and concerts culminating in a performance of his Five Klee Pictures, in the presence of the composer, at the National Concert Hall alongside works by his compatriots, Holst, Vaughan Williams and Britten, in his centenary year
Presented by Royal Irish Academy of Music
..."

[fergus]

Thank you for that James; I might just try to get along to that concert!

[fergus]

Neptune, The Mystic


Movement highlights:

• women's choir chords underneath orchestra
• obvious Ravel influence
• long, indiscriminate melody--delicately scored

This movement is, if any music can be, the disembodied spirit of sound. Nothing “happens” in it. Themes are practically non-existent; in their place are fragments of melody and harmony, all manipulated at the very lowest dynamic level and in the most attenuated orchestral sonorities. The orchestration is transparent to the point of insubstantiality and the thematic content is minimal which reflects pure sound with no earthly preoccupation. Holst asks for “sempre pp throughout” and a dead tone. Holst apparently pencilled “dead tone, except for clarinet after 5” in his copy of the score. The slowly alternating chords of E minor and G sharp minor change place so smoothly that the pulse is almost imperceptible. The clarinet brings the first hint of a tune as its rising phrase floats upwards. Almost imperceptibly a double chorus of women's voices enters on a high G, sustained through a dozen bars. The singing continues, without words, embedded in a semi-transparent veil of orchestral sound as the voices move through their “Neptune” harmonies. Even this dies away, and the voices are left alone to intone a cadence over and over again with ever diminishing tone, until it is consumed in silence.

Of all the movements, this is the most other-worldly. Eerie sliding pianissimo and the wordless women’s choir makes this a hypnotic, transporting ending to the suite. The whole movement seems like it could very well be a call from the distant planet itself. It is a beautiful pianissimo piece, very eerie and unsettling. The wordless song of the women's choir catches and hypnotizes the listener. This was Holst's best friend's (Ralph Vaughan Williams) favourite movement. The influence of “Neptune” can be heard in many of RVW's later works. It is a wonderful finale for this grand suite, as it leaves the listener yearning for more, in a definite state of unrest. It does not give you the typical, fan-fare triumphant finale that you want. This is another of the many reasons why this suite is so original.

Neptune was one of the first pieces of orchestral music to have a fade-out ending, although several composers (including Joseph Haydn in the finale of his Farewell Symphony) had achieved a similar effect by different means. Holst stipulates that the women's choruses are "to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed", and that the final bar (scored for choruses alone) is "to be repeated until the sound is lost in the distance". Although commonplace today, the effect bewitched audiences in the era before widespread recorded sound—after the initial 1918 run-through, Holst's daughter Imogen (in addition to watching the charwomen dancing in the aisles during "Jupiter") remarked that the ending was "unforgettable, with its hidden chorus of women's voices growing fainter and fainter... until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence".

The texture of the music contains a provocative combination of a static surface with intense activity beneath. The influence of Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, can be felt in the use of Klangfarbenmelodie (sound-colour melody), in which each note of a melody is played by a different instrument. Female voices appear, come to rest on two repeating chords, and fade into the infinite.

Neptune, a psychic, lives purely, sensing vibrations that rarely come to ordinary human beings. It has been suggested that “The Mystic” was, for Holst, a musical representation of a kind of Nirvana for which he always strived.

[fergus]

Addendum:

Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before Holst's death, and was hailed by astronomers as the ninth planet. Holst, however, expressed no interest in writing a movement for the new planet. He had become disillusioned by the popularity of the suite, believing that it took too much attention away from his other works.

In 2000, the Hallé Orchestra commissioned the English composer Colin Matthews, an authority on Holst, to write a new eighth movement, which he called "Pluto, the Renewer". Dedicated to the late Imogen Holst, Gustav Holst's daughter, it was first performed in Manchester on 11 May 2000, with Kent Nagano conducting the Hallé Orchestra. Matthews also changed the ending of "Neptune" slightly so that movement would lead directly into "Pluto".


Gustav Holst seemed to consider The Planets a progression of life. "Mars" perhaps serves as a rocky and tormenting beginning. In fact, some have called this movement the most devastating piece of music ever written! "Venus" seems to provide an answer to "Mars," its title as "the bringer of peace," helps aid that claim. "Mercury" can be thought of as the messenger between our world and the other worlds. Perhaps "Jupiter" represents the "prime" of life, even with the overplayed central melody, which was later arranged to the words of "I vow to thee, my country." "Saturn" can be viewed as indicative of Holst's later mature style, and indeed it is recorded that Holst preferred this movement to all others in the suite. Through "Saturn" it can be said that old age is not always peaceful and happy. The movement may display the ongoing struggle for life against the odd supernatural forces. This notion may be somewhat outlandish, but the music seems to lend credence to this. "Saturn" is followed by "Uranus, the Magician," a quirky scherzo displaying a robust musical climax before the tranquillity of the female choir in "Neptune" enchants the audience.

The Planets is one of those pieces at once atypical of their composer and enormously popular, which nevertheless deserve their popularity. It also creates a powerful new musical landscape – so powerful, indeed, that almost nobody else has been able to follow up on its expressive possibilities. The Planets appears to have burst without a precedent on the musical scene and to have been dropped by Holst, who never again wrote another piece like it. However, this is merely because not many know Holst's earlier work, due in large part to the composer's daughter, Imogen, and her management of her father's posthumous reputation. In the context of Holst's entire career, The Planets culminates Holst's first maturity and stands at the end of a line that includes Savitri, Sita, the suites for band, and particularly Beni Mora. It also contains the seeds of the later, more austere, and sparer Holst.

The last three movements explore radically new expressive territory – indeed, they foretell most of Holst's post war career. Writers have described this new means of expression as "bleak." It certainly doesn't use a lot of notes, e.g. in "Jupiter" especially. The thematic content in particular is down to a minimum – sometimes just two notes or two chords. On the other hand, Holst turns to the same means, despite its apparent limitations, to express ecstasy, mystery, "otherness," and serene detachment.


The Planets is one of those works that, due to repeated hearing by the public who may perceive it to be Holst’s only work, we may lose sight not only of its strength of character and intrinsic beauty but of its startling originality.

[fergus]

Thus concludes this thread. I hope that by sharing my research I have been able to throw some new light onto this wonderful work for some of you and that you have found it to be worthwhile. I also hope, more importantly I suppose, that I have prompted someone out there who has not listened to The Planets to give it a go. It can be a very rewarding work with minimal effort on the part of the listener.

[Seán]

Thus concludes this thread.

Well done Fergus, I have really enjoyed reading this thread, it is a very fine piece of work.

I hope that by sharing my research I have been able to throw some new light onto this wonderful work for some of you and that you have found it to be worthwhile. I also hope, more importantly I suppose, that I have prompted someone out there who has not listened to The Planets to give it a go. It can be a very rewarding work with minimal effort on the part of the listener.

Yes you have. I have spent the last few nights listening to the Adrian Boult recording and I want to listen to the Stokowski and Colin Davis recordings too. I will return with my thoughts very soon.