THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2018-2019 41
Program Notes
moonlit waves, the mysterious song of the Sirens
before they laugh and pass on.’’
Nocturnes helped launch the radical in Debussy, although
his was a quiet rebellion, wrote Alex Ross,
The New Yorker’s classical music critic, in a 2018
retrospective for the 100th year of Debussy’s death.
“Debussy accomplished something that happens
very rarely, and not in every lifetime: He brought a
new kind of beauty into the world. Debussy engineered
a velvet revolution, overturning the extant
order without upheaval.’’
GUSTAV HOLST (1874-1934)
THE PLANETS
Duration: ca. 51 minutes
Twenty years ago, The Florida Orchestra offered
a multidimensional performance of The Planets,
complete with NASA imagery projected above the
stage and a narrator describing stops along the
way. Audiences were enthralled as much by Holst’s
popular score as they were of video pieced together
from the Viking, Voyager and Magellan space
missions.
It was a gamble to be so overtly descriptive with
a suite inspired more by mysticism and astrology
than astronomy, but audiences enjoyed the ride.
Other orchestras around the country have had
similar success with the mosaic, and this week
TFO continues the trend. The Planets, however, is
less a depiction of the solar system than a suite of
miniature, often turbulent tone poems of varying
moods and colors. Holst, who died in 1934, wanted
to create an emotional experience rather than a
postcard tour, and he delivered his one-hit wonder
with a dramatic punch.
“There’s just a powerful juxtaposition of the different
sections, especially between Venus and Mars,’’ said
TFO Music Director Michael Francis. “And it was an
absolutely radical piece of orchestration for its time
and utterly modern in its language.’’
Originally titled Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra, the
suite is remarkably diverse, with each movement in
complete contrast to those around it. Here’s a brief
listener’s guide:
1. Mars, the Bringer of War — The first section to
be composed, in 1914, opens with a menacing
ostinato in 5/4 rhythm that quickly turns into
a brassy, barbaric masterpiece of rhythm designed
to unsettle listeners from the get-go.
2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace — Relaxed and
ethereal, this portrayal of the Roman goddess
offers relief from the prior turmoil in a luminous
blend of strings and harp.
3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger — The last
section to be completed, in 1916, this scherzo
exchanges quicksilver themes in a delicate
dance that ends almost as soon as it begins.
4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity — A Jovian celebration
and the most extroverted of the
bunch, its main theme later used in the hymn I
vow to thee, my country.
5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age — Solemn and
dignified, the music for the ringed planet unfolds
as an expansive march of time, first grim,
then peaceful, with tolling bells suggesting a
release from life.
6. Uranus, the Magician — Four notes from the
brass introduce the god of the skies and heaven,
the music transformed into a macabre
march that seems to represent spent souls.
7. Neptune, the Mystic — A melismatic women’s
chorus sings a wordless hymn that evaporates
into silence, which might be viewed as
eternity or the celestial void beyond our solar
system. This section, entirely in pianissimo, is
arguably the first piece of classical music to
end with a “fade out.’’ Note how similar this
music is to Sirens, the third movement of Debussy’s
Nocturnes, also for woman’s chorus.
Some listeners might wonder why Holst’s solar
system has just seven planets. He decided not
to include Earth, which lacked the astrological
mysticism attached to the other planets. As for
Pluto, it had yet to be discovered at the time.
However, in 2000 the British composer Colin
Matthews wrote an addendum to The Planets,
and today many performances include the outermost
orb as a coda to this famous suite.
Program notes by Kurt Loft, a freelance writer
and former music critic for The Tampa Tribune.