The Planets

This article is about the orchestral suite by Gustav Holst. For the celestial body, see Planet. For the planets in our solar system, see Solar System. For the 1999 BBC TV miniseries "The Planets", see The Planets (TV miniseries).

The Planets, Op. 32 is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the British composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst. All planets are represented with the only exception being Earth (which is not observed in astrological practice).

From its premiere to the present day, the suite has been enduringly popular, influential, widely performed and the subject of numerous recordings. However, it had a protracted birth. There were at least three performances in London and Birmingham between September 1918 and October 1920, but they were either private or incomplete. The first complete public performance was given in London on 15 November 1920, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Albert Coates.

Background

The Queen's Hall, where The Planets premiered in 1918

The concept of the work is astrological rather than astronomical (which is why Earth is not included): each movement is intended to convey ideas and emotions associated with the influence of the planets on the psyche, not the Roman deities. The idea of the work was suggested to Holst by Clifford Bax, who introduced him to astrology when the two were part of a small group of English artists holidaying in Majorca in the spring of 1913; Holst became quite a devotee of the subject, and liked to cast his friends' horoscopes for fun. Holst also used Alan Leo's book What is a Horoscope? as a springboard for his own ideas, as well as for the subtitles (i.e., "The Bringer of...") for the movements.

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 it was in this incarnation that it became enormously popular. Holst's use of 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 influence of Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring is especially notable. These new (at least for British audiences) sonorities helped make the suite an instant success. Although The Planets remains Holst's most popular work, the composer himself did not count it among his best creations and later in life complained that its popularity had completely surpassed his other works. He was, however, partial to his own favourite movement, "Saturn".

Premieres

• The private orchestral premiere of The Planets suite, conducted at Holst's request by Adrian Boult, was held at rather short notice on 29 September 1918, during the last weeks of World War I, in the Queen's Hall with the financial support of Holst's friend and fellow composer Henry Balfour Gardiner. It was hastily rehearsed; the musicians of the Queen's Hall Orchestra first saw the complicated music only two hours before the performance, and the choir for "Neptune" was recruited from pupils from St Paul's Girls' School (where Holst taught). Despite the auspicious venue, it was a comparatively intimate affair, attended by around 250 invited associates.
• An ecstatically-received public concert was given in London on 27 February 1919 while Holst was overseas, but only five of the seven movements were played (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus).
• There was an incomplete public performance in Birmingham on 10 October 1920, with five movements (Mars, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter) conducted by Appleby Matthews.
• The first complete public performance of the suite did not occur until 15 November 1920; the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) was conducted by Albert Coates.

Holst conducted the LSO himself, in two recorded performances of The Planets: the first was an acoustic recording made in sessions between 1922 and 1924 (now available on Pavilion Records' Pearl label); the second was made in 1926, and utilised the then-new electrical recording process (in 2003, this was released on compact disc by IMP and later on Naxos outside the US). Because of the time constraints of the 78rpm format, the tempi are often much faster than is usually the case today.

Instrumentation

• 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, violoncellos, 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

Structure

The suite has seven movements, each named after a planet and its corresponding astrological character (see also Planets in astrology):

1. Mars, the Bringer of War
2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace
3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger
4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
6. Uranus, the Magician
7. Neptune, the Mystic

A typical performance of all seven movements lasts for about 50 minutes. Some commentators have suggested that the order is intentional, 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 centrepoint 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 metre.

"Neptune" was the first piece of orchestral music to have a fade-out ending (although Joseph Haydn had achieved a similar effect by different means in the finale of his Farewell Symphony). 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".

Pluto

Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before Holst's death he contracted herpes, 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 he destroyed the planet pluto.

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".

Six years later, in August 2006, the International Astronomical Union promulgated for the very first time a definition of the term "planet", which resulted in Pluto's status being demoted from planet to dwarf planet. Consequently, Holst's original work is once again a complete representation of all of the extraterrestrial planets in the Solar System.

Recordings

Main article: The Planets discography

Adaptations of The Planets

Non-orchestral arrangements

• Drum and bugle corps - Several drum and bugle corps have performed The Planets, most notably in 1995 when The Cavaliers won the Drum Corps International world championship.
• Piano duet (four hands) - An engraved copy of Holst's own piano duet arrangement was found by John York.
• Two pianos (duo) - Holst also created a version for two pianos. When he was composing the duo, he had two of his friends play the four-hands version to aid in the transcription. The two-piano arrangement was published in 1949. Holst's original manuscripts for it are now in the holdings of the Royal College of Music (Mars, Venus, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), Royal Academy of Music (Mercury) and British Library (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus).
• Organ - Peter Sykes transcribed The Planets for organ.
• Moog - Isao Tomita adapted The Planets for a moog and other synthesizers and electronic devices.
• Brass band - Stephen Roberts, associate conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra, transcribed the entire suite for brass band.
• Marching band - The movements: Mars, Venus and Jupiter, have all been arranged for marching band by Jay Bocook. Paul Murtha also arranged the chorale section of Jupiter for marching band.
• Percussion ensemble - James Ancona arranged Mercury for a percussion ensemble. It consisted of 2 glockenspiels, 2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones, 2 marimbas, 5 timpani, a small suspended cymbal, and 2 triangles.
• Rock band - An arrangement of "Mars" by progressive-rock trio Emerson, Lake & Powell appeared on their eponymous album (1985) and was played in their 1985-86 live shows.
• Death metal band - "Mars" was adapted into an orchestral introduction for the song "Rameses, Bringer of War" by death metal band Nile.
• Black metal/Viking metal band - Bathory used the melody from Jupiter for the song Hammerheart on the Twilight of the Gods album.
• Japanese singer Ayaka Hirahara released a pop version of "Jupiter" in December 2003. It went to #2 on the Oricon charts and sold nearly a million copies, making it the third-best selling single in the Japanese popular music market for 2004. It remained on the charts for over three years.
• King Crimson used a similar theme in the song "The Devil's Triangle" as heard in "Mars, Bringer of War". The piece was also originally known as "Mars" before it was released on In the Wake of Poseidon but the publishers would not allow it. Though on later live releases it would again be referred to as "Mars".
• Synergy's "Jupiter Menace", title track to the film of the same name, is based on and inspired by "Mars".
• Heavy Metal band Iron Maiden chose part of "Mars, Bringer of War" as intro for The Final Frontier World Tour in 2010.
• Heavy metal band Diamond Head incorporated elements of "Mars" into their song "Am I Evil?".
• Heavy metal band Domine incorporated a narrative track into their album "Dragonlord, tales of the Noble Steel", entitled "Mars, Bringer Of War", as an intro for the title song "Dragonlord".
• Portions of the "Jupiter" movement were used by progressive rock band Yes in their song "The Prophet", released on the Time and a Word album from 1970.
• "Jupiter" was also adapted by Manfred Mann's Earth Band as their 1973 single "Joybringer".

Hymns

Holst himself adapted the melody of the central section of Jupiter in 1921 to fit the metre of a poem beginning "I vow to thee, my country". As a hymn tune it has the title Thaxted, after the town in Essex where Holst lived for many years, and it has also been used for other hymns, such as "O God beyond all praising".

"I Vow to Thee, My Country" was written between 1908 and 1918 by Sir Cecil Spring-Rice and became known as a response to the human cost of World War I. The hymn was first performed in 1925 and quickly became a patriotic anthem. Although Holst had no such patriotic intentions when he originally composed the music, these adaptations have encouraged others to draw upon the score in similar ways throughout the 20th Century.

"World in Union", the theme song of the Rugby World Cup since 1991, uses this same melody.

In 2001, the LDS Hymn, "The Iron Rod" was adapted to the melody of the central section by Bob Galbraith to be sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the 175th Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 2007, singer-songwriter Corrinne May wrote her own lyrics to the central section in the song The Answer, which appears on her fourth album, The Gift.

Further reading

• Greene, Richard. Holst: The Planets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-521-45633-9
• Head, Raymond. Astrology and Modernism in "The Planets", Tempo (Boosey & Hawkes, London, now Cambridge University Press) No 187 December 1993.
• Short, Michael. Gustav Holst: The Man and his Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-19-314154-X

External links

• Links to public domain scores of The Planets:
  • The Planets: Suite for Large Orchestra (Score in the Public Domain)
  • Free scores by The Planets at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
  • Thaxted sheet music (PDF)
• Online Recordings:
  • The Planets Suite Op. 32 Live recording by Peabody Concert Orchestra (2002)
  • Free MIDI recordings of "The Planets" (containing some errors, however)
• IMDB entry for the 1983 Ken Russell documentary "The Planets"

Audio clips

• Jupiter performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Alexander Gibson in the Henry Wood Hall in Glasgow in July 1979
• Jupiter arranged by Stephen Roberts and performed by the Black Dyke Band