Once I texted my trombone-major boyfriend to ask if he needed to go see the Seattle Symphony carry out Gustav Holst’s The Planets: An HD Odyssey with me this weekend, I obtained this enthusiastic, if very stoned, reply:
>planets is hella sick
>holst was a trombone participant who was bored with being dissed by composers
>so that they acquired the cool components with fortissississimo dynamic markings
>he was like “let ‘er rip” and so the horn part simply goes nuts
>i wrote a complete paper at humboldt state about how holst and mahler acquired their shit robbed for contemporary film soundtracks
>i acquired a c minus
Nicely, rattling. Clearly, I had extra analysis to do.
Born on the sting of the Cotswolds area of England in 1874, Gustav Holst was a composer and raving socialist who had numerous fascinating medical issues. He was additionally agonizingly shy, and labored professionally as a trombone participant as a result of he couldn’t make a residing as a composer. The fourth gen in a household of pro-level musicians, younger Gustav was earmarked by his dad to be a pianist, however his proper arm was crazed by neuritis, which he as soon as described as feeling “like a jelly overcharged with electrical energy.” He additionally had bronchial asthma and weak eyesight and, by most accounts, was a sickly, delicate, depressing individual total. The Niles Crane vitality of this man.
Regardless of his goals of spending his time composing, not tromboning, Holst solely ever had one mainstream hit, The Planets: a seven-part suite whereby every motion is known as and styled after a unique planet. His best-known work throughout his lifetime is means higher identified immediately—notably by Star Wars followers, as a result of John Williams bombastically ripped off a minimum of three of the suite’s actions when writing the unique Star Wars soundtrack within the late ’70s, on the particular request of George Lucas. “The Imperial March,” the “Imperial Assault,” music, “The Drive Theme”… it’s fairly blatant. They’re all largely ganked from the “Mars” motion, the place the horns go nuts, aforetold. Some say that Williams actually copied the music from Holst’s rating, though no lawsuit was ever filed by Holst’s property.
The entire suite is strongly evocative of what trendy ears usually acknowledge as “soundtrack music,” and for good motive—it has been closely mined over the many years. E.g., the principle theme from the primary Alien film is plainly bogarted from the “Saturn” motion of The Planets. A basic patriotic British hymn, “I Vow to Thee, My Nation,” was nicked notice for notice from the “Jupiter” motion (after its lyricist requested Holst to put in writing a melody for his poem and Holst was too busy, so he simply helped himself). There have been a ton of video video games that borrowed from the suite too, together with the “Misplaced Woods” music from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and “The Airship Theme” from Tremendous Mario 3.
I might go on. Individuals simply carry on robbing poor Gustav. Suffice it to say that, for those who’ve ever left your property, about half of this rating fairly effectively.
This weekend, you’ll have three possibilities to listen to Holst’s celestial masterwork carried out dwell by our personal Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Corridor. The Planets: An HD Odyssey will punctuate the orchestral suite with a backdrop of tremendous close-up NASA images of nebulae and asteroids and Dune-y landscapes, main audiences on a swoopy journey by way of the galaxy.
This HD-enabled model of The Planets has been touring the US for a number of years, however we get a particular bonus right here in Seattle. The three native performances will probably be directed by Xian Zhang, the Seattle Symphony’s recent new director-elect who’s slated to begin her new job within the fall of ’25. A longtime SSO visitor director, Zhang is one in all solely two feminine administrators of main symphony orchestras within the nation, and our native store was fortunate to win her from the New Jersey Symphony. (The opposite is Nathalie Stutzmann, who leads the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.) Zhang can be the one individual of shade to guide the Seattle Symphony in its whole century-long historical past. It’s been wall-to-wall white dudes since 1903. As a former Cornish piano scholar who fantasized about conducting sometime and was overwhelmed by the scarce variety of girl conductors on this planet in 1999—it’s a giant deal to have Zhang as Seattle’s director-elect.
Sax soloist Steven Banks would be the opening act, making his Seattle Symphony debut together with his efficiency of Diaspora. American composer Billy Childs wrote this saxophone concerto expressly for Banks, wherein he describes the Black expertise in the US—all through the previous, the current, and the long run that Childs envisions—by way of music, with the symphony backing up Banks’s sax solo. In writing the concerto, Childs took inspiration from poems by Nayyirah Waheed (the previous), Claude McKay (the current), and Maya Angelou (the long run).
Somewhat extra about Holst! The spacey film that’ll be taking part in behind it however, The Planets was written concerning the planets in an astrological context, not an astronomical one, as a result of Gustav was an enormous astrology ho. He revered the astrological significance and character of every planet, and every motion has a cute accompanying character trait within the title, like “Neptune: The Mystic” and “Uranus: The Magician” and “Venus: The Bringer of Peace.” There are solely seven actions in The Planets as a result of solely eight planets had been invented again then, and he didn’t write one about Earth as a result of it sucks. It sucked even again then.
One other enjoyable truth is that, when The Planets debuted in London in 1918, it was thrown collectively last-minute for a personal viewers and the musicians got the rating solely two hours earlier than the curtain went up. For the angelic vocable refrain bit in “Neptune,” Holst simply grabbed a few of his college students and was like “Okay, go,” and it got here off as… not skilled. Plus there have been no phrases, simply ahs. Though many later modified their tunes, early critics trashed the primary slapdash efficiency, together with the subsequent few exhibits—The Globe known as The Planets “noisy and pretentious,” and the Saturday Evaluation initially quipped that Holst apparently noticed the planets “as objectionable nuisances that he would oust from our orbit if he might.” Audiences discovered it kinda creepy and bizarre too. Holst was already a documented bizarre individual, and this did not assist.
“Neptune” is my fave, by the best way, for its dream-sequencey use of dissonance and, yeah, that spooky offstage feminine refrain singing wordlessly, directly channeling The Little Mermaid and Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins. Talking of wordless tones, after I’d texted him from the opposite room, my boyfriend smoked extra weed after which we acquired into an extended argu-discussion about whether or not The Planets can rightly be known as a tone poem. He says sure, and I stated no, on precept, regardless that I don’t completely know what a tone poem is. It appears, like, too lengthy to be known as that. He’s in all probability proper although, since he graduated from music college and I dropped out. He is clearly the family Holst scholar.
In closing, get actual excessive and go see The Planets: An HD Odyssey by Gustav Holst at Benaroya Corridor this weekend. It’s like The Planets with additional planets. I’ll see you on the wine desk.
Seattle Symphony will carry out The Planets: An HD Odyssey on the evenings of March 27 and March 29, in addition to a matinee present on March 30. Tickets might be bought at seattlesymphony.org.
