Classical Music I Adored As A Teenager 3 pt. 2—The Planets by Gustav Holst
THIRD PIECE Pt. 2
The Planets by Gustav Holst
(Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra)
Last week, I introduced you to the first four movements The Planets by Gustav Holst. The last three movements are even more imaginative than the first four. Exotic augmented chords and effects using harp, celesta, and glockenspiel create magical textures that really seem to take us deep into outer space. Nevertheless, it is music that is instantly familiar. We’ve all “grown up” with this music, in a sense, because practically every fantasy or sci-fi movie or TV show has a score that copies its same harmonies, special effects, or even its themes. But hear it again in the "original" to experience its full power and emotion.
Again, Holst wrote The Planets during WWI, the same time that Stravinsky and Schoenberg were bewildering the world with an entirely new harmonic language. Holst uses some of the same dissonances, but even more than a century later, I think we all find them easier to absorb in his music than in Schoenberg’s. Holst repeats his dissonant chords, often oscillating back and forth between two chords, to create a “groove” of familiarity. Also, his dissonant chords are in a tonal context. That is, they lead to other, more familiar chords. Of course, Holst’s music is not remotely on the order of genius of Stravinsky or Schoenberg. But listening again after so many years, I realize that his Planets perhaps have impacted classical listeners and even composers as much as Stravinsky’s revolutionary Rite of Spring.
Below, I've provided descriptions and links of some of these remarkable moments. The YouTube examples include the score if you want to really study how Holst creates his orchestral magic.
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Flutes play a slow ostinato of two half-diminished chords creating the tick-tock of time in Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age. I love when the violins breath in a long expressive sigh over this clock, using just two notes on the low G string. Those two notes are a super stretched out inversion of the clock motive itself. So simple an idea. Yet it sounds like a person breathing!
Long Sigh in the Violins in Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Holst presents the tick-tock on many levels. In this inspired moment, the brass and percussion alternate their own clockwork with church bells coloring the full orchestra in their own clock.
Brass and percussion vs. full orchestra and bells in Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
When I was a teenager, I remember having tears listening to the ending of Saturn. The violin sigh now opens up new major harmonies, “healing” the tragic tritones of all those previous half-diminished chords. Such a simple idea, but so effective! The final measures are a blissful C major 7th chord, the tick-tock now a gentle murmur of flutes and harps under sustained strings.
Transformation at the end of Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Uranus, the Magician
Uranus, the Magician owes a lot to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas:
Bassoons in Uranus the Magician
Bassoons in Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas
I like how the busyness at one point coalesces into a very catchy “English folk tune” theme:
Catchy Theme in Uranus the Magician
Then after that theme reaches a climax, the four note Uranus theme (G-Eb-A-B) pops up in very different rhythms in the bassoons, the timpani, and the tuba:
Uranus theme in bassoons, timpani, and tuba
The ending really is a piece of magic. Hear the dissonance between the strings playing an F major 9th chord, while one harp plays an open E chord and the other harp plays the Uranus whole tone motive (G-Eb-A-B) .
Magic Harp Ending in Uranus, the Magician
Neptune, the Mystic
I remember as a teenager feeling quite emotional listening to this last movement of The Planets. There is such a sweet sadness in these oboe chords:
Sweet sad oboes in Neptune, the Mystic
Those chords moving upwards in a partial scale are a tease for what Holst reveals at the end of the movement. There is a hidden connection between Neptune and Mars, the first movement that began this planetary journey. Both movements are in 5/4 meter. In Mars, you feel the pounding of the meter in your body. With Neptune, you sense the 3+2 beats subliminally. For most of the movement, two triads alternate a major 3rd apart—E minor and G# minor. E minor holds 3 beats, G# minor two.
The Two Alternating Triads in Neptune, the Mystic
The asymmetry gives this oscillation a subconscious wobble, a subtle restlessness that keeps the music moving forward, even while it also feels static. Eventually Holst layers the on top of one another and the dissonance sounds as if we travel into outer space. These two minutes are perhaps the most imaginative sounds in The Planets. Listen to these mystical arpeggios in strings, winds, harp, brass, and eventually celesta:
Mystical arpeggios combining two chords (E minor + G# minor) in Neptune, the Mystic
Deep Mysticism in Neptune, the Mystic
These remarkable musical textures evoke something deep, far beyond the special effects we routinely experience in movies today. They instill a new awakening. Holst now reveals that these alternating chords together contained the notes of an exotic rising scale. Oboes begin this scale and in one last “magic trick”— an offstage women’s chorus wordlessly sustains a high G. It is truly a sublime moment:
Oboes Building the Exotic Scale That Introduces The Women’s Chorus
The harmonic changes that follow seem to open up new worlds. Allow me to be a bit technical for those interested. The E minor/G# minor scale falls a step down, to D major (A dominant 13th) and then shifts a tritone away to Ab major (an Eb13th chord).
Harmonic shift from dominant A 13th to Eb 13th in Neptune, the Mystic
Then comes an even more magical shift to E major (B 13th), as the women’s chorus now sings in rising triads, accompanied by harps and woodwinds. Truly an “unworldly” sound:
Shift to E major and the Women’s Chorus in Rising Triads
The ending of The Planets is an extraordinary fade out. The offstage women’s chorus continues alternating two chords (still exotic, but sounding more harmonically resolved—F dominant 9th to E major +6). They continue repeating the two chords softer and softer, until they fade to silence (the door to their offstage room is gradually closed). We feel the infinite stretch and ultimate entropy of the cosmos.