Holst: the Planets

Holst: The Planets

Suite for large orchestra

It's an unlikely combination, asthma and the trombone; but they come together when introducing the Englishman, born in Cheltenham, with the unlikely name of Gustav Holst. He was of Swedish origin; his father was a music teacher, his mother (who died when he was eight) a singer, and after trying the violin and the piano, the young asthmatic Holst settled on the trombone as his instrument of choice. It earned him money as an orchestral player, during which time he gained much insight into the art of orchestration that bore copious fruit in his mature compositions.

His early compositional work (such as the opera Sita, based on a story from Hindu scripture) sounds like imitation Richard Wagner, but once he found his feet (so to speak), his music is unmistakeably his own. The work by which he is best known today is The Planets, a suite for large orchestra [including organ] – with some exotic additions to the usual roster of instruments, such as a bass flute (more accurately described as an alto flute, but that's another story), the recently-invented celesta and a bass oboe – in which Holst illustrated the planets' various astrological – please note, not astronomical – aspects.

Mars, the Bringer of War opens the work and is underpinned by a relentlessly threatening 5/4 rhythm, beginning with all the strings treading menacingly with their bows upside down – an unusual technique termed by musicians col legno (Italian for with the wood [of the bow]) which produces a deliberately unpleasant percussive effect. Holst paints a harrowing sonic landscape of the relentless horrors of war, with fanfares, grindingly dissonant chords and the unceasing five-in-a-bar rhythm. Its influence on the score for the opening battle scene of the recent Ridley Scott film Gladiator is obvious, and apparently when the film was released there was some legal brouhaha between the film-makers and Holst's estate because of the similarity between the two.

Venus, the Bringer of Peace is a veritable musical haven of tranquillity, with ravishingly scored woodwind chords, some exquisite writing for strings (both solo and ensemble), two harps, and much use of the celesta (a keyboard instrument which sounds like a set of tiny bells which was then something of a novelty; most people first come across it in Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from his score for the ballet The Nutcracker); the whole makes a sound-picture of Peace itself.

Mercury, the Winged Messenger uses mannerisms typical of the mature Holst: use of two keys at once (Holst's music is often astonishingly technically advanced without sounding at all highbrow), interplay between rhythms (here 3 x 2 beats against 2 x 3 beats), and sparkling orchestration that magically and seemingly effortlessly evokes the fleeting messenger of the gods.

Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity is the exuberant centrepiece of the suite. Holst unleashes his full orchestra in a good-natured riot of sound that at one point towards its end even makes use of the six timpani that he prescribes in the score (with two players – a financial extravagance that probably makes most orchestral managers wince) to play one of the main tunes – a touch that is easily missed by the listener outside a live performance. The ¾ melody that is central to the piece was later adapted into the hymn “I vow to thee, my country,” but that was well after Holst composed it and he had nothing to do with it, as far as I know.

Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age is the movement of The Planets that Holst was most proud of. It can be summarised as an austere depiction of the slowing-down that inevitably accompanies the ageing process that comes to us all, with a serenity and sense of acceptance which is at least equal to that of the Four Last Songs (Vier Letzte Lieder) of his contemporary Richard Strauss.

Uranus, the Magician contrasts markedly with its predecessor. It is a piece that is a not too distantly related cousin of Paul Dukas' musical depiction of Goethe's tale The Sorcerer's Apprentice, who was memorably portrayed by Mickey Mouse in Walt Disney's animated film Fantasia. Holst paints a picture in sound of a barely competent magician (somewhat reminiscent of Terry Pratchett's Rincewind of the Discworld novels) who attempts and finally succeeds – after a great deal of bumbling about - in achieving the calmness of Neptune's regions. Holst derives most of the music of the movement from its first four notes, and does it so skilfully that you need the score in front of you (or a musical ear as good as Benjamin Britten's, who once demonstrated in a recording session of one of his own works that he could hear the difference between an upbow and a downbow on a string instrument such as a violin) to realise just how well he manages it.

Neptune, the Mystic brings back the 5/4 rhythm of Mars; but with an unearthly stillness, oscillating between two keys and never rising above pianissimo [very quiet] in a way quite unlike the technique used in Mercury and which is unlike any other music. Holst allows the movement to proceed chordally (alternating between E minor and G# minor, which seems to have inspired (perhaps unconsciously) Howard Shore's opening theme – using the same keys - for the score of the recent excellent film directed by the New Zealander Peter Jackson of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings) without so much as a tune for much of its length; but when a theme does eventually appear - on one of the clarinets – it reinforces the listener's sense of calm. An off-stage double chorus of wordless women's voices then drifts into the music almost imperceptibly and leads off via sweeping glissandi on the harps and quiet chords on the celesta into the ending of the suite, which can truly be defined as infinite, the last two chords from the women's chorus being repeated ever more quietly until the sound is lost in the distance.

Postscript: Pluto (which, by the way, has now been officially declared by the International Astronomical Union not to be a planet) had not yet been discovered when Holst wrote The Planets. The accomplished composer Colin Matthews has recently provided an extra movement for the suite to remedy this shortcoming, but it doesn't seem to have caught on yet. It certainly hasn't with me.

INF Finrod