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Context:

The work displays that Holst was in touch with his musical contemporaries. Before Holst started to compose The Planets, both Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky made trips to England and caused quite a stir. Schoenberg visited England and conducted his Five Orchestral Pieces Op. 18. Holst must have gone to this concert and been impressed, for Holst labelled the preliminary sketches of The Planets "Seven Orchestral Pieces." Around the same time, Stravinsky also visited England and conducted his Le Sacre du Printemps. Holst must have noticed this unconventional way to use the orchestra, because in the first movement, "Mars," the blatant dissonance and unconventional meter seems to be riddled with the influence of Stravinsky. There are obvious ideas borrowed from Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Debussy (the quality of "Neptune" resembles earlier Debussy piano music).

Holst never wrote another piece like The Planets again. The Planets brought Holst fame and fortune, and today it is his best known (almost his only known) work. Holst himself hated its popularity. He thought it was least typical of his style of composition and did not want to be associated with that one work alone. The counter argument to this of course is that The Planets gave Holst a reputation that he might not otherwise have had. When people would ask for his autograph, he gave them a typed sheet of paper that stated that he didn't give out autographs. The public seemed to demand of him more music like The Planets, and his later music seemed to disappoint them. In fact, after writing the piece, he swore off his belief in astrology, though until the end of his life he cast his friend’s horoscopes. How ironic that the piece that made his name famous throughout the world brought him the least joy in the end. He was, however, partial to his own favourite movement, "Saturn". The level of success is all the more surprising considering The Planets was not commissioned; being a work composed in Holst’s spare time during three turbulent years of World War I. Interestingly, Mars, the Bringer of War was completed just weeks before the outbreak of war.

In relation to the musical textures and sonorities in the work I think that it is interesting to bear in mind the fact that Holst was a professional trombone player in the Carl Rosa Opera Company after leaving the Royal College of Music and then in the Scottish Orchestra before he took up full time teaching.

bombasticDarren wrote:

Jose Echenique wrote:Karajan ... never recorded a note of Elgar, Walton or Vaughan Williams

Just a gentle reminder...

;-)

Oh, I didn´t remember that recording. Thanks Darren.

Early Performances and Premier:

Although the suite has been enduringly popular, the work was not heard in a complete public performance, however, until some years after it was completed. Although there were four performances between September 1918 and October 1920, they were all either private or incomplete. The premiere was at the Queen's Hall on 29 September 1918 as a gift from Henry Balfour Gardiner (great-uncle of John Elliot Gardiner), conducted by Holst's friend Adrian Boult before an invited private audience of about 250 people. The first complete public performance was finally given in London’s Queen's Hall by Albert Coates conducting the London Symphony Orchestra on 15 November 1920.

Orchestration:

The Planets as a work in progress was originally scored for a piano duet, except for "Neptune", which was scored for a single organ, as Holst believed that the sound of the piano was too percussive for a world as mysterious and distant as Neptune. Holst then scored the suite for a large orchestra and his orchestration was very imaginative and colourful, showing the influence of Arnold Schoenberg and other continental composers of the day rather than his English predecessors.

The work is scored for an exceptionally large orchestra:

Woodwind: 4 flutes (3rd doubling 1st piccolo; 4th doubling 2nd piccolo and a "bass flute in G", actually an alto flute), 3 oboes (3rd doubling bass oboe), an English horn, 3 clarinets in B-flat, a bass clarinet in B-flat, 3 bassoons and a contrabassoon

Brass: 6 horns in F, 4 trumpets in C, 3 trombones (2 tenor and 1 bass), a "tenor tuba" (euphonium in B-flat) and a bass tuba

Keyboards: a celesta, and an organ

Percussion: 6 timpani (2 players, 3 drums each except in "Uranus" having 4 drums for 1st and 2 drums for 2nd), a bass drum, a snare drum, cymbals, a triangle, a tam-tam, a tambourine, a glockenspiel, a xylophone, and tubular bells

Strings: 2 harps, 1st and 2nd violins, violas, cellos, and double basses
Voices: ("Neptune" only), 2 three-part women's choruses (SSA) located in an adjoining room which is to be screened from the audience.


With such a large scale orchestra Holst had embarked on a work the scale of which would have been envisaged by such composers as Berlioz, R. Strauss, Schoenberg and Mahler. His object was apparently not to impress with a large sound world but rather to bring an immense variety of orchestral colour into the work.

This is fantastic work as usual Fergus! I was able to listen to the Karajan 1961 recording on Decca along with a borrowed Previn with the Royal Philharmonics on Telarc. I really enjoyed both versions and have to admit the amazing definition on the Previn leaves me speechless: This has to be one of the best classical recordings I have ever heard! I would not pretend to know much about the interpretation or performance attributes of each version but for shear scale and depth in soundstage the Previn is a joy of a disc.

Looking forward to reading this thread and more listenings of this brilliant work!

Structure:

The Planets is a suite of seven movements, each named after a planet and its corresponding astrological character:
Mars, the Bringer of War
Venus, the Bringer of Peace
Mercury, the Winged Messenger
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Uranus, the Magician
Neptune, the Mystic


Holst's starting point for the music was the astrological character of each planet, though his interest in astrology went no deeper than its musical suggestiveness. His daughter wrote that once the underlying idea had been formulated “he let the music have its way with him”. There was, therefore, no programme for the suite, and the composer himself pointed out that it has no connection with the deities of classical mythology. The many clues to the meaning of the music are the subjects of the individual movements.

Holst's original title (clearly seen on the handwritten full score) was "Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra". The composer's name was given as 'Gustav von Holst' (Holst was of Swedish descent on his paternal side of the family) — by the time he wrote "Mercury" in 1916 he had dropped the 'von', for he signed the score of that movement separately as 'Gustav Holst'. The movements were called only by the second part of each title (I "The Bringer of War", II "The Bringer of Peace" and so on). The present titles were added in time for the first (incomplete) public performance in September 1919, though they were never added to the original score. It is perhaps instructive to realize Holst attended an early performance of Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra in 1914 (the year he wrote "Mars", "Venus" and "Jupiter") and owned a score of it.

Some commentators have suggested that the ordering is structural, with the anomaly of Mars, Venus, Mercury, instead of the reverse, being a device to make the first four movements match the form of a symphony. An alternative explanation may be the ruling of astrological signs of the zodiac by the planets: if the signs are listed along with their ruling planets in the traditional order starting with Aries, ignoring duplication, Pluto (then undiscovered) and the luminaries (the Sun and Moon), the order of the movements corresponds. Another possibility, this time from an astronomical perspective, is that the first three movements, representing the inner terrestrial planets, are ordered by decreasing distance from the Sun; the remaining movements, representing the gas giants, are ordered by increasing distance from the Sun. Critic David Hurwitz offers an alternative explanation for the piece's structure: that "Jupiter" is the centre point of the suite and that the movements on either side are in mirror images. Thus "Mars" involves motion and "Neptune" is static; "Venus" is sublime while "Uranus" is vulgar, and "Mercury" is light and scherzando while "Saturn" is heavy and plodding. This hypothesis is lent credence by the fact that the two outer movements, "Mars" and "Neptune", are both written in rather unusual Quintuple meter.

A more prosaic explanation may simply be that Holst wrote the movements in the order they stand, with one exception, and that the only structural change was to place "Mercury" third. "Mars", "Venus" and "Jupiter" were each from 1914, "Saturn", "Uranus" and "Neptune" from 1915 and "Mercury" from 1916. It has been speculated that "Mars" was a response to the outbreak of World War I, but Holst denied this, saying that "Mars" was completed before war was expected, and in August 1914 he was half-way through "Venus". Nevertheless, "Mars" is seen as prescient of mechanical warfare, something that was not a reality until after the entire suite was complete. Contrary to what is also sometimes said, Holst was not a pacifist but wanted to enlist as his friend Vaughan Williams did, but he was rejected as unfit: he suffered neuritis in his right arm—something that caused him to seek help from several amanuenses in scoring The Planets. This is clear from the number of different hands apparent in the full score.

Claus wrote:I was able to listen to the Karajan 1961 recording on Decca along with a borrowed Previn with the Royal Philharmonics on Telarc. I really enjoyed both versions and have to admit the amazing definition on the Previn leaves me speechless: This has to be one of the best classical recordings I have ever heard! I would not pretend to know much about the interpretation or performance attributes of each version but for shear scale and depth in soundstage the Previn is a joy of a disc.

Looking forward to reading this thread and more listenings of this brilliant work!

I am delighted that you are enjoying this wonderful work so much Claus. I intend to do a small piece on each planet so hopefully that will help to guide you to some fruitful interpretations and hopefully will also help to enhance your enjoyment even more.

At this point I am going to list the performances that I own and comment briefly on each of them. As Holst himself had expressed no interest in writing a movement for the new planet I do not own any version that contains “Pluto”.

The versions that I own which are on vinyl are as follows (listed in alphabetical order by conductor merely for convenience) are....

Loughran/Halle Orch. [CfP]
Ormandy/Philadelphia Orch.: [RCA]
Previn/ London Symphony Orch.: [EMI]
Stokowski/Los Angeles Philharmonic [MfP] x 2; stereo & mono






The highlights in the Loughran/Halle performance for me are the performance of Mars which aptly portrays the harsh brutal world of war through the snarling brass and a particularly strong sense of anger in Saturn following the introduction which could very well be autobiographical.

The highlights in the Ormandy performance are a very smooth Venus, a very delicate Mercury and a very considered Saturn.

Previn does well throughout if somewhat laboured in places. His Venus is lovely and his Neptune is magical.

Stokowski’s Mars has bite and both his Venus and Neptune are gentle, delicate and lovely (both work well in mono incidentally). His Jupiter is big without being flamboyant and his is a noble Saturn.

The versions that I own which are on CD are as follows (once again in alphabetical order)....

Gardiner/Philharmonia Orch.: [DG]
Holst/London Symphony Orch.: [Naxos]
von Karajan/Vienna Philharmonic Orch.: [Decca]
Solti/London Philharmonic [Decca]
Steinberg/Boston Symphony Orch.: [DG]





The highlights in the Gardiner performance are a beautiful Venus which for me has a sparkling clarity and a certain languid tenderness and his Jupiter is a powerful, bombastic affair.

I only have the von Karajan version with the Vienna Philharmonic and not with the Berlin Philharmonic (which does not attract many pundits). His Mars is superb and indeed all of the subsequent movements are played to the highest standard. The big theme in Jupiter is very stately and is almost like a National Anthem! His Saturn is very good.

Solti does very well where one would expect with wonderfully bombastic renditions of Mars, Jupiter and Uranus but he is a bit heavy handed with Venus and Neptune and his Saturn is too incoherent and ineffectual.

Steinberg opens with a ferocious, menacing Mars and one can really hear the wood of the bows belting the violin strings at the beginning! His Venus is a bit “heavy” but it is beautiful and sonically sparkling, a term which could well be applied to all of the performances on the CD. His Jupiter is wonderful; one can hear the orchestra laughing! The only place where this approach does not work is in Neptune; there is no magic.

Holst's own electric recording is from 1926 (he had an earlier acoustic recording) and the quality is remarkable for its age. A typical performance of all seven movements lasts for about fifty minutes but the Holst version lasts for just over forty-two and a half minutes. The performance has obvious historical interest as it obviously indicates how the composer himself wanted the work to be performed.

bombasticDarren wrote:What recordings can you recommend Fergus?

I would be happy to recommend any of the above recordings (either CD or LP version) with the possible exception of the Solti but even that has something worthwhile to offer and I suspect that the Holst recording would not be acceptable to many modern listeners. The von Karajan would be a very strong recommendation and the Gardiner and Stokowski are both very good as well but my favourite is the Steinberg version. I am not sure about the availability of the vinyl versions on CD but I am sure that they should be no problem.