Cultural influence of Holst's The Planets

Seven-movement astrology-themed suite as featured in works of art From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gustav Holst's suite The Planets has been the subject of frequent adaptations and additions, and many later works, particularly in popular music, have been derived from it. There are numerous references to the suite in popular culture.

Adaptations

Non-orchestral arrangements

  • Piano duet (four hands) – an engraved copy of Holst's own piano duet arrangement was found by John York.[1]
  • Two pianos (duo) – Holst had originally sketched the work for two pianos, due to a need to compensate for the neuritis in his right arm. His two friends, Nora Day and Vally Lasker, had agreed to play the two-piano arrangement for him as he dictated the details of the orchestral score to them. This they wrote down themselves on the two-piano score, and used as a guide when it was time to create the full orchestral score.[2] 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).[3]
  • Pianola – In the early 1990s an arrangement was made for piano rolls by the English pianolist, Rex Lawson, and published on the Perforetur label.[4]
  • Organ – American harpsichordist and organist Peter Sykes transcribed The Planets for organ.[5][6]
  • Ensemble or Chamber Orchestra – English orchestrator George Morton transcribed The Planets for 15-piece ensemble or chamber orchestra.[7][8]
  • Moog – Isao Tomita adapted The Planets for a Moog and other synthesizers and electronic devices.[9] The original LP release prompted legal action from Holst's estate. The composer's daughter, Imogen Holst, worked hard to prevent the recording being distributed in the UK.[10]
  • Brass instruments – Hungarian trombonist and arranger Áron Simon transcribed the Mars movement for 6 trombones, euphonium, tuba, timpani and percussion.[11]
  • Brass band – Stephen Roberts, associate conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra, transcribed the entire suite for brass band.[12]
  • Marching band – the movements Mars, Venus and Jupiter have all been arranged for marching band by Jay Bocook.[13] Paul Murtha also arranged the chorale section of Jupiter for marching band.,[14] Kevin Shah and Tony Nunez created the work "Bringer of Joy", based on "Jupiter".[15]
  • 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.[16]
  • Drum corps – selections from The Planets were performed by The Cavaliers as part of their 1985 repertoire, and as the entirety of their 1995 feature field show, as well as appearing in their 2017 production Men Are From Mars.[17]
  • Rock bands:
  • In 2020, the Jeremy Levy Jazz Orchestra released The Planets: Reimagined, recasting all seven movements into a jazz arrangement.[24] Levy's arrangement of "Uranus: The Magician" received a Grammy nomination for 'Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella' at the 2021 Grammy Awards show.[25]

"Thaxted" from Jupiter

Main article: Thaxted (tune)
Main article: I Vow to Thee, My Country

The most-adapted part of The Planets is an anthemic melody found in the central section of Jupiter. In 1921, Holst was asked to write a melody for the poem "I Vow to Thee, My Country" by Sir Cecil Spring Rice. According to his daughter Imogen Holst, at the time he "was so over-worked and over-weary that he felt relieved to discover they 'fitted' the tune from Jupiter".[26] The poem and hymn "I Vow to Thee, My Country" 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. Imogen commented in 1968 that for more than half a century the hymn had been affecting the original Jupiter with "unwanted associations".[27] In 1926, the melody was published on its own, as part of the hymnal Songs of Praise. Holst gave it the name "Thaxted", after Thaxted, Essex, the English village where he lived much of his life.

Other hymns that use the melody include "O God beyond all praising"[28] and "We Praise You and Acknowledge You" with lyrics by the Rev. Stephen P. Starke.[29]

Secular settings of the melody include:

Uses of the wordless melody include the video games Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force,[36][37] Civilization V and Battlefield V.[38] The English heavy metal band Saxon also used the melody as an introduction to their gigs in the late 1980s.[39]

In film and television

Music inspired by The Planets

Additions by other composers

Two planets are notably not included in The Planets: Earth and Pluto. Holst had not wanted to include the Earth in his suite because the suite was based on astrology, and Earth has no astrological significance.[60] Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before Holst's death, and was hailed by astronomers as the ninth planet. (In 2006 it was redesignated as a dwarf planet.) Holst expressed no interest in writing a movement for the new planet as he had become disillusioned by the popularity of the suite, believing that it took too much attention away from his other works.[61]

In the final broadcast of his Young People's Concerts series in March 1972, conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic through a fairly straight interpretation of the suite, though he discarded the Saturn movement because he thought the theme of old age was irrelevant to a concert for children. The broadcast concluded with an improvised performance he called "Pluto, the Unpredictable".[62]

In 1999, the Hallé Orchestra commissioned English composer Colin Matthews, an authority on Holst, to write a new eighth movement, which he called "Pluto, the Renewer". Matthews also changed the ending of "Neptune" slightly so that the movement would lead directly into "Pluto".[63] Matthews dedicated the addition to the late Imogen Holst, Gustav Holst's daughter, who had been an acquaintance of his. The new movement was first performed in Manchester on 11 May 2000, with Kent Nagano conducting the Hallé Orchestra. Matthews speculated that, the dedication notwithstanding, Imogen Holst "would have been both amused and dismayed by the venture."[64]

In 2012, the Philharmonia Orchestra commissioned British composer Joby Talbot to write an ending movement to The Planets as part of their “Universe of Sound” project. Talbot called the piece “Worlds, Stars, Systems, Infinity”, and like Colin Matthews’s Pluto movement, this piece emerges from Neptune without a break, coming out of the final chords from the voices. It was premiered in an experimental fashion with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting.[65]

Japanese composer Jun Nagao arranged The Planets for the Trouvère Quartet in 2003, and added movements for both Earth and Pluto. He arranged the suite for concert band in 2014, and included in that arrangement other popular Holst melodies as well.[66]

Other influence

  • Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, references The Planets, using Mars, the Bringer of War as Mars' anthem to be played when Valentine Michael Smith visits the White House as an emissary from Mars.[67]
  • In 2014, Bell's Brewery released its "The Planets Series" of seven beers inspired by Holst's The Planets.[68]

References

Sources

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