Gustav Holst
The Planets
Second Suite for Band
Fame was something Gustav Holst did not particularly care for or understand,
and when it came to him with the success of his orchestral suite The Planets he
wrote to a friend, "It made me realize the truth of ‘Woe to you when all men
speak well of you.'" Having labored in relative obscurity as a weekend and
summer composer in between terms as teacher at the St. Paul's Girls' School
in Hammersmith (England), the mild-mannered musician found himself beset with
reporters and fans who expected his next compositions to be in the same vein.
"If nobody likes your work," he concluded, "you have to go on just for the
sake of the work, and you are in no danger of letting the public make you repeat
yourself." He himself wanted nothing more than to find a quiet place to write
music that would express his thoughts freely, economically, and, he hoped,
unconventionally.
The son of a successful pianist and organist, young Gustav suffered from
asthma and neuritis and did not have the stamina to become a concert pianist
himself. So he studied composition at the Royal College of Music, writing pieces
first influenced by Grieg, Dvorâk, and most notably Wagner, whose works the
young Holst never missed when performed at Covent Garden. It was there that
Holst made the acquaintance of fellow student Ralph Vaughan Williams, with whom
he forged a lifelong friendship. When in 1903 Vaughan Williams began collecting
English folk songs, Holst took them up as well, finding a source of inspiration
that transformed his music into a more "English" style, and that led him to
discover his own straightforward idiom. At the beginning of the 20th century,
English music had become somewhat stilted, composers still requiring a "bridge
passage" between one musical idea and the next. Holst's goal was to speak as
directly as possible through his music. Composers such as Benjamin Britten
acknowledged a lasting debt to Holst's directness of expression; one of Holst's
students wrote, "with what enthusiasm did we pare down our music to the very bone!"
Second Suite for Band
Holst's second study was trombone, and his experience performing both as a
student on the pier at Blackpool or Brighton during holidays and after
graduation with groups such as the Scottish Orchestra gave him an appreciation
for the players' point of view. He also saw that bandsmen needed more
literature to perform, and so he combined his interests in folk tunes and band
music to create his first and second suites for military band.
The second suite, written in 1911, features a number of folk melodies. Holst
begins unconventionally with a March (usually reserved for the end),
incorporating the tunes "Swansea Town," "Cloudy Banks," featuring a
euphonium solo and brass choir, and an old morris dance with lilting triplets.
The three themes alternate in a strict A–B–C–A–B order, with almost no
bridging material.
The slow second movement, Songs without Words, is based on the folk song "I'll
Love my Love." A solo oboe introduces the tune, upon which Holst layers
increasingly rich harmonies and eventually a rising and falling counterpoint.
Then one by one sections drop away, leaving the low brass to sound the final
tones. The quiet mood of this piece is immediately broken by the percussive
strikes of Song of the Blacksmith. The separate, syncopated pulses paint the
picture of the smithy at work, augmented by the sound of the hammer on anvil.
The final movement, Fantasia on the Dargason, weaves together two more folk
tunes. The Dargason, a Renaissance dance melody, is best known to us as "The
Irish Washerwoman," and is introduced here on saxophone, passed quickly to
other instruments in succession. Holst's inventive orchestration keeps driving
the dance forward, but he adds something extra: while clarinets sound the main
theme, a second theme appears simultaneously in the lower brass. This tune,
perhaps hard to recognize under the brisk dance, is the familiar "Greensleeves."
The dance continues relentlessly, and though Greensleeves makes a final broad
appearance in the full brass, the washerwoman has the last word in an amusing
duet between piccolo and tuba to close the piece.
The Planets
A few years after the publication of the band suite, Holst was introduced to
astrology by his friend Clifford Bax. A short book by Alan Leo called What is a
Horoscope? suggested to Holst possibilities for musically interpreting the
influences of each planet. In later years, he stressed that the suite was not
intended to be programmatic, and that each movement simply suggested the traits
ascribed to the planet's influence on the horoscope — the work was not
intended to depict the gods and goddesses of Greco-Roman mythology.
Holst worked on the piece from 1913 to 1916, beginning with Mars and ending
with Mercury. His neuritis made it difficult for him to copy out the parts, so
he wrote a two-piano version for his students and teaching staff, notating the
orchestration which was then copied out by others. It was several years,
however, before the full work was performed, in part because the cost of hiring
the augmented orchestra was difficult during wartime: the piece requires two
harps, celesta, organ, varied percussion, and a full complement of bass
instruments including bass flute, bass clarinet, bass tuba, bass trombone,
contrabassoon, and the seldom-used bass oboe. It was first performed privately
on September 29, 1918 as a present to Holst from his friend and patron Balfour
Gardiner, with Adrian Boult conducting the New Queen's Hall Orchestra. The
first public performance was given on November 15, 1920, when the work met with
immediate success.
It is no surprise that Holst's contemporaries saw in Mars, the Bringer of
War, a parallel to the recent horrors of World War I. The movement begins
forcefully with full strings and percussion sounding a rhythmic sequence in 5/4, forming an ostinato that gives the section its pulsing, relentless pace.
Unresolved harmonies and unrelated chords are superimposed, creating a clashing
dissonance that aptly depicts conflict. The final measures repeat the patterns of triplets,
quarter-notes, and eighths that dominated the ostinato, but they now pound in
short pulses separated by silence, in no apparent regular meter, bringing the movement to its emphatic
close.
The calming contrast of Venus, the Bringer of Peace, is a relief after Mars'
fury. The lyrical movement has no brass other than French horns, letting the
lush strings dominate. Peaceful melodies lead to a brief, romantic interlude
augmented by harps and celesta that fades to an ethereal close.
Mercury, the Winged Messenger, brings a new kind of energy, not of conflict
but, as Holst wrote, a "symbol of the mind." The scherzo-like movement
abounds in polyrhythms, some instruments playing in 6/8 while others are in 2/4.
The bitonal scale alternates between E and B-flat, adding energy and thrust.
Perhaps the best-known of the movements, Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity,
evokes both a sense of fun and, according to Holst, "the more ceremonial type
of rejoicing associated with religious or national festivities." Beginning
with a vigorous tune against rapidly moving strings and woodwinds, the movement
quickly brings forth several celebratory themes. The central section segues into
a stately, ceremonial melody reminiscent of Elgar — in fact, Holst also set
this melody as a separate hymn, "I vow to thee my country." The hymn ends on
an unresolved chord that is immediately met by the joyous motifs of the first
section, drawing to a brilliant finish.
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age, was Holst's favorite. A slow, repeated
two-note pattern sounded first by flutes and harps reminds the listener of
relentless time. Yet the pattern is not plodding; Holst adds emphasis to each
pulse by setting them on the off-beats of two and four in the 4/4 meter. The
inexorable procession leads to a broad climax with clanging bells reminiscent of
a tolling clock or church chime. Yet peace is made with time: the movement
subsides in quiet harmony with the now-distant bell.
Uranus, the Magician contrasts a clashing march of brass and percussion with
fleet melodies that appear and disappear like a magician's tricks. But in the
end the propulsive rhythms suddenly drop to an awed hush: the sorcerer has
evidently worked a real spell and brought us to the last movement, Neptune, the
Mystic. Quiet and contemplative themes sound against long-drawn chords of brass
or woodwinds. The melodies gradually evolve to a series of rising chromatic
segments sounded by both the orchestra and a wordless offstage choir. In the end
only the voices are heard, fading into the vastness of eternity.
June 10, 2001
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