The Planets, written between 1914 and 1916, is a suite of seven movements composed by British composer Gustav Holst. Holst’s starting point for the music was the astrological character of each planet. His daughter, Imogen, 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 in the subjects of the individual movements.

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 would 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 (e.g., “The Bringer of…”) for the movements.

On 17 January 1914 Holst attended a performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Five Pieces for Orchestra”, at the Queen’s Hall, conducted by Schoenberg’s pupil Edward Clark. Holst quickly acquired a copy of the score, the only Schoenberg score he ever owned. This influenced Holst at least to the degree that the working title of his own composition was “Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra”.

When composing The Planets Holst initially scored the work for four hands, two pianos, 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, in which form it became enormously popular. Holst’s use of orchestration was very imaginative and colourful, showing the influence of such contemporary composers as Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg, as well as such late Russian romantics as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov. Its novel sonorities helped make the work an immediate success with audiences at home and abroad. 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.

The first complete performance of the suite at a public concert did not occur until 15 November 1920; the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) was conducted by Albert Coates. This was the first time the movement Neptune had been heard in a public performance, all the other movements having been given earlier public airings.

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. Matthews himself has speculated that, the dedication notwithstanding, Imogen Holst “would have been both amused and dismayed by the venture.”

The suite has seven movements, each named after a planet and its corresponding astrological character:

1. Mars, the Bringer of War (1914)
2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace (1914)
3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger (1916)
4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (1914)
5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age (1915)
6. Uranus, the Magician (1915)
7. Neptune, the Mystic (1915)

MARS, the bringer of war. Three musical ideas are used to create this martial piece: (1) a brutally rhythmic figure of five beats relentlessly hammered out, (2) a principal theme in triads moving by chromatic steps with no true harmonic purpose; (3) a second theme consisting of a tattoo in the tenor tuba answered by a flourish of trumpets. There is no glory, no heroism, no tragedy in this music. It is entirely inhuman. Not even death is in it, for Mars is as insensitive to death as to life. War is a senseless, mechanised horror is Holst’s real subject here.

VENUS, the bringer of peace. She is announced by four ascending notes in the solo horn and a sequence of converging chords in the flutes and oboes. Most of her music lies, symbolically, in the middle and upper registers of the instruments; and harps, celeste, and glockenspiel further characterise her heavenly nature. In addition there are beautiful melodies for her in the solo violin and oboe. Though this is music of surpassing serenity it is not simple in harmony, texture or orchestral sonority. One cannot help but observe how fitting it is that the state of peace be described in complex terms, in contrast to the complicity of the depiction of war.

MERCURY, the winged messenger. This is the quickest and, in duration, the shortest movement of the suite. Aside from its speed, however, its particular quality comes from the opposition of two simultaneous keys and two simultaneous rhythms. The two keys, which are sounded in the very first bar, are B-flat and E (which, being separated from one another by the interval of the tritone, have no note in common). The two rhythms arise out of different groupings of six beats, the first being ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-six, the second being ONE-two-THREE-four-FIVE-six. This opposition of contrasting patterns is one of Holst’s principal characteristics, and other examples of it can be found not only in The Planets but abundantly throughout his works.

JUPITER, the bringer of jollity. The exuberance of this movement shows itself not only in its tempo and rhythm but also in the multiplicity of subjects. You can count four, five or six of them, depending on whether you divide the first two into their component parts – they do behave like independent themes. Jupiter might well be designated as ‘the English movement’ because it shows how profoundly Holst was influenced by the folk music of his country. Certainly this is rustic English, music for a fair; there are crowds of people in it and infinite good spirits. The grand tune that ends the parade of themes has become the setting for a patriotic hymn with the words ‘I vow to thee my country’.

SATURN, the bringer of old age. Unlike the previous movements, which are static in the sense that each depicts various aspects of a single trait, this one moves through a series of ‘events’ that bring the music to conclusions not envisioned at the beginning. 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. But the elderly voice of wisdom is soon heard in the B-minor theme for the trombones, and at the end the mood is one of acceptance, reconciliation and consequent serenity.

URANUS, the magician. You can take as the figure of Uranus almost any magician you have ever seen in opera, drama or vaudeville – preferably one with the tall pointed hat studded with stars, the flowing blue robe with voluminous sleeves, and the silver want. He is invoked by Holst with a triple invocation, 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. By way of encore he makes some mysterious incantations, suddenly (one guesses from the music) envelops himself in flames – and disappears.

NEPTUNE, the mystic. This movement is, if any music can be, the disembodied spirit of sound. 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. 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 diaphanous veil of orchestral sound. 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.

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PLUTO, the renewer. Composer Colin Matthews said : “The only possible way to carry on from where ‘Neptune’ leaves off is not to make a break at all, and so ‘Pluto’ begins before ‘Neptune’ has quite faded, necessitating a slight change to the ending. And it is very fast—faster even than ‘Mercury’: solar winds were my starting point. The movement soon took on an identity of its own, following a path which I seemed to be simply allowing to proceed as it would: in the process I came perhaps closer to Holst than I had expected, although at no point did I think to write pastiche. At the end the music disappears, almost as if ‘Neptune’ had been quietly continuing in the background.”

Let’s listen to the suite in it’s entirety as Edward Gardner leads the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the CBSO Youth Chorus in a performance of Gustav Holst’s The Planets with Colin Matthews’ supplementary piece “Pluto, The Renewer.”  Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall on 6th August 2016 as part of Prom 29……….Pam and I are up in The Gallery.

Mars, the Bringer of War 0:00

Venus, the Bringer of Peace 7:15

Mercury, the Winged Messenger 15:09

Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity 18:58

Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age 26:42

Uranus, the Magician 35:32

Neptune, the Mystic 41:20

Pluto, the Renewer 49:17