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