Gustav Holst: The Planets
South Dakota Symphony 2015 Young People’s Concerts
Background information
Biographical Information:
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was a true citizen of the fin de siècle era, that turn of the 19th-20th centuries.
For those who are fans of Downton Abbey, Holst was a true member of that time. His music was written
in the context of that society, and his audience was filled with the people who lived in England as the
Twentieth Century began.
Gustav was the son of a pianist, and grew up learning to play piano and violin. He loved the piano but
didn’t enjoy the violin. His health and eyesight were poor throughout his life. His mother died when he
was eight, and when his father remarried, Gustav was sent away to school. He was already plagued by
neuritis in his hands at this early stage, and he took up the trombone when his hands no longer allowed
him to maintain his piano technique.
As he entered his college years he met several important people. He met Ralph Vaughan Williams and
the two were close friends through life; sharing works in progress along the way. During this time, he
met Isobel Harrison who was the love of his life. They married in June 1901. She encouraged Holst to
care for his fragile health and to be aware of the way his appearance affected people’s perception of
him. In 1895 he became interested in Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit. He learned Sanskrit so that he
could accurately translate Hindu writings.
The early years of marriage were difficult. Holst learned a lot about symphonic music from playing
trombone, but eventually gave it up to concentrate on composition. Success was not immediate, so
Holst took a job teaching at St. Paul’s Girls School in Hammersmith Country, England. He continued
teaching at St. Paul’s the rest of his life. He also accepted an additional position as Music Director at
Morley College for Working Men and Women, a school that would remain important to him the rest of
his life though he resigned his teaching post in 1924. He rediscovered Renaissance madrigals, and with
the students at Morely staged a revival from the score of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen.
In 1911, St. Paul’s opened their new music wing with a large soundproof room. During the week it was a
lovely rehearsal space. On Sundays, Holst used it as a space to submerge himself in composition. He
began work on The Planets somewhere around 1912. There is no definitive time when Holst first
sketched the work, but the whole composition appears in 1914. Prior to that time both Schoenberg and
Stravinsky visited England. Schoenberg brought Five Orchestral Pieces and Stravinsky brought Le sacre
du printemps. Both works received copious amounts of public attention. Stravinsky and Schoenberg
offered dissonance, interesting rhythms, intriguing instrumentation and timbral combinations, and the
use of klangfarbenmelodie which fades one instrument into another. These tools are all evident in
Holst’s work.
As he worked on the composition, Holst considered this Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra. The titles of
the individual planets were only added at the last minute. He was disturbed by the popularity of the
work as his work continued and developed, and never wrote another orchestral piece in this style and
scope.
As The Planets was being finished World War I broke out across Europe. Holst attempted to join the
patriotic frenzy and serve his country as his friends were doing, but was refused due to his ill health. His
wife drove an ambulance moving wounded soldiers to the hospitals. Finally in 1917 he was given a post
with the YMCA organizing musical activities for soldiers in the Near East. He wrote to his daughter and
wife repeatedly of his experiences, saying “it was great fun, but I fear I was not of much use.”
Holst returned from his war experiences to continue writing though, he didn’t receive the critical
acclaim that The Planets and another piece from the same time frame, The Hymn of Jesus had received.
He also continued conducting. In 1923 he slipped from a conducting podium and received a closed head
injury. The concussion caused him problems the remainder of his life. A year after the accident the pain
in the back of his head was so severe he could not tolerate anything touching it.
In 1932 he was hospitalized with a duodenal ulcer that caused hemorrhaging. In early 1934 he was
given the choice of minor surgery which would leave him an invalid or more major surgery that was
expected to allow him to resume his usual life. He chose the more complex surgery, but his heart wasn’t
able to withstand the stress and he died two days later, on May 25, 1934.
The Music:
It’s tempting to see Holst’s movements as depictions of specific ideas about the planets themselves, or
about the gods and goddesses that inspired the human names for them or even about their astrological
character since Holst toyed with astrology and even cast horoscopes for his friends. The musical work is
not really any of these things. For millennia humans have looked to the sky to find meaning and learn
about our place in the universe. On a practical level the connection between tides and the moon has
been well known, and the planets have been sorted from stars and even asteroids. Holst wrote works
named for each of seven planets, omitting Earth and Pluto. In Holst’s time Pluto had not been
discovered much less gone through its cycle of discovery, elevation to planet, demotion from planet and
enduring argument.
Holst’s composition explores the newer musical tools that were being developed in the early twentieth
century. He was influenced by Debussy, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, borrowing bits from each but
emerging with his own voice. He was closely in touch with popular culture and was able to use new
tools to create a work that became immensely popular quite rapidly. Unfortunately he came to hate the
work since he continued developing, and never found the same success while The Planets became a
staple of the orchestral repertoire.
Mars, the Bringer of War:
The first movement is Mars, though it is not first in the astrological listing nor in nearness to the sun. In
over half of the movement the meter in five is defined by a single rhythmic figure: tri-o-la (tri-pe-let) ta
ta ti-ti ta . Other things worth noting include the strings playing col legno (with the wood of the bow) to
create an eerie sound, the relentless crescendo to the halfway point where things seem to disintegrate
only to build up again and return to the rhythmic figure and march forward. For many students this will
sound familiar. (No it isn’t the Imperial Death March from Star Wars though it does have some
similarities, especially in the implacable forward motion.)
The first performance of The Planets was a private performance organized by a wealthy friend just
before Holst left to serve in the YMCA during the First World War. Sir Adrian Boult conducted that
performance. Jim Yancy, writing for the East Texas Philharmonic, reported Sir Adrian Boult commented:
“I well remember the composer’s insistence on the stupidity of war as well as all its other horrors…. I
feel the movement can easily be played so fast that it becomes too restless and energetic and loses
some of its relentless, brutal, and stupid power.”
Another commentator Paul Serotsky says, “Holst’s horrific vision of War seems not to know how, or
when, to end.”
However Richard Greene in his book about the composition hypothesizes, “Ultimately, the movement
Mars is not so much ‘about war’ or its horrors; rather it projects a character which by its very nature
brings war on itself. War in this sense is an inner struggle, a trial by fire, a personal ordeal.”
Venus, the Bringer of Peace:
An ascending line of solo horn balanced by a descending wind line begins this carefully balanced
movement full of shimmering gestures of beauty created out of intervals that should sound dissonant.
The result is not disturbing but invites contemplation and relaxation. The dynamics are not insistent,
but grow out of the melodies and harmonies. This is not a simple gumdrop of quick sweetness, but a
picture of beauty and contentment that requires the listener to participate. Numerous annotators refer
to this movement in terms that evoke gardens in beautifully temperate weather.
Greene reports that program notes from a 1919 Queen’s Hall performance say of this movement, “The
whole of this movement…is pervaded by the serenity of a world which nothing seems able to disturb.
The mood is unmistakably mystical, and the hero may indeed imagine himself contemplating the
twinkling stars on a still night…”
Indeed the sheer sensuous quality of the movement allows us to be ready for the two scherzoesque
movements which will follow.
Mercury, the Winged Messenger:
Holst reported that this was the last movement he composed. He couldn’t quite find the character
needed to fit the suite until he had finished the other movements. What he finally composed provides a
balance between the two previous movements with their deep and engaging emotions. Mercury offers
us the chance to catch a view of something or someone who moves too fast to allow close examination.
The instrumentation is vital to the function of this movement. The scurrying figure of Mercury at the
beginning requires passing from low strings and winds to mid-range instruments to high instruments
and back down. This is an experiment in klangfarbenmelodie where the timbre should strive to keep the
same quality and not draw the listener’s attention at it moves from one timbre and range to the next.
The middle section of the movement is built on a single melodic figure repeated which builds to a
climax, then backs down to allow the arpeggio figure of the beginning to return. It’s almost as if
Mercury pauses to allow us a good look, but like a hummingbird is incapable of remaining still long
enough for us to really see him.
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity:
In contrast to Mercury, the character of Jupiter seems inviting if not a bit overwhelming. There is a
sense of folk tune to the primary melody, while in the middle there is a strong melody that did not
remain long as just Holst’s characterization of Jupiter. It was pulled from its setting and given words
almost immediately, with the most famous lyrics beginning as the patriotic “I Vow to Thee, My Country.”
It found life as a hymn tune named Thaxted with the most common hymn words beginning, “O God
Beyond All Praising,” or, “Let Living Streams of Justice,” and finally since 1991 has been used as the
theme for the Rugby Union World Cup. Holst was not happy about this appropriation!
Overall the movement feels like a genial and large uncle dancing with spirit and singing with gusto
(though without words). There is an underlying sense that while on the surface he is delighted with the
present, life has presented enough conflict to build a complex personality. We only see the apparently
happy figure with a slight sense of something more complex below the surface. Holst’s connections
between themes and sections are not subtle in this movement.
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age:
Greene shares the views of Saturn that grew through the early years of this work:
“From the first performances of Saturn, its iconic value was very strong for listeners, though
emotional interpretations varied somewhat. That is to say, everyone heard “old age” in the
music, but some heard it negatively while others construed it more positively. Through the
years, the metaphor of the title has generally been interpreted by the main commentators
(Imogen Holst, Edmund Rubbra, and Michael Short) to mean desolation. Imogen does
acknowledge the ending as having a mood of acceptance but she heard it as acceptance of
human tragedy. There is also the reference made to the passing of time and the aging process,
the tireless counting out of the minutes as they pass by, and the peaceful resignation of the
ending. Short mentions the ending as a transformation of the opening material, and the iconic
value of the material is emphasized for all the commentators throughout the piece: the opening
alternating chords are the ticking of a clock; the long notes are dragging limbs.”
The choice of timbre to produce the inexorable ticking of the clock is eerie and mysterious but much as
the passage of time feels to us as we age. In addition the opening features half-diminished chords with
no resolution, making tonal progression non-existent. After a certain point in life we wonder when the
previous years devolved into memory. In Holst’s work all is not negative and dissonant, but complex
with beauty intermingled with more complicated emotions. The opening lack of tonal progression
moves into chords that lead us onward, melody based on the tritone at the beginning morphs into a
perfect fourth instead. While many of the movements change tempo either gradually or suddenly, here
the tempo remains while the dynamics and timbre weave around it until about half way through the
movement. Suddenly the heartbeat of the movement is interrupted with a quickened beat. When the
restrained tempo returns it is presented in a complex ostinato instead of a clock ticking. Is this that
feeling most people have as the years move rapidly as we age?
Uranus, the Magician:
This movement seems to begin with the announcer proclaiming the beginning of a magic show. Then
we meet the magician, more a showman than a scary surreal magician. His assistants are a bit inept.
Imogen Holst drew a connection between this work and her father’s earlier discarded piece titled
Phantasies and Paul Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice which had been received favorably. She notes that
they share much in character and view of the magician.
Greene says of this movement, “But one can find, as Imogen does, a great deal of the unexpected, the
overdone, the unbalanced, and even the eccentric in the music itself. From this point of view the
subject of the program is a sort of merry incompetence which is in the scherzo spirit. If this is a
magician, the listener might say, then he cannot be a frightening one; his smoke and shrieks come to
nothing – and I am not intimidated, but I am entertained.”
The piece builds and builds, and at the last minute dies away to nothing as if the magician has gone
about his business leaving us behind to wonder.
Neptune, The Mystic
Neptune follows, but will not be played at the Young People’s Concerts since time and personnel
constraints (Neptune requires a full women’s choir) make it logistically impossible. The movement is
based on triadic harmony with the minor mode dominant, but the effect is not the usual sadness
associated with a calm minor. This is more restful than mourning. This peaceful beginning is replaced
with somewhat more tense resolutions as chords collide, and a filigree of notes in harps and upper
strings adds a bit of tension. Figures from other movements are revisited through the movement.
Books:
Holst, the Planets – Richard Greene – Cambridge music handbooks eBook
WorldCat (Augie owns the eBook)
Gustav Holst: A Biography – Imogen Holst (Holst’s daughter) – available as an iBook
Websites:
Official Holst website:
http://www.gustavholst.info/
Boston Symphony Orchestra education guide – very extensive! Includes score facsimiles
http://www.bso.org/media/15173/ThePlanetsResKit.pdf