Holst's The Planets, Op. 32

Gustav Theodore Holst
(September 21, 1874 - May 25, 1934)
born Gustavus Theodor von Holst

The only thing that I could find of note about Holst, was that he fell backward off of a podium once and suffered a concussion. ahwell

Regarding The Planets, Holst wrote the pieces for the (then) seven celestial bodies.  He wrote the pieces not for their Roman Mythology counterparts, bur rather the influence of the celestial bodies on the human psyche.  The piece typically runs about 50 minutes.  The movements aren't in typical planetary order (i.e. MVEMJSUN[P]): 

• I. Mars, the Bringer of War
• II. Venus, the Bringer of Peace
• III. Mercury, the Winged Messenger
• IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
• V. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
• VI. Uranus, the Magician
• VII. Neptune, the Mystic

You may be thinking, "Where is Pluto?"  Holst composed The Planets between 1914 and 1916.  Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before his death.  However, he was suffering from some type of severe stomach problem or something in the four years prior to his death, so I don't think writing something for Pluto was at the top of his To Do list.  Though, in 2000, the eighth movment "Pluto, The Renewer" was commissioned by some recording group to be composed by some guy who was an authority on Holst's work.  However, six years later, the IAU removed Pluto from the ranks of the planetary bodies in our solar system and thus Holst's original work remains complete.  I'm not going to be posting the eighth movement, because this is Holst's The Planets not Holst and some other guy's The Planets.  It must suck to be that guy though. "Oh hey look i just totes completed this work so now it covers all the planets".  Well done, IAU. *shds

Anyway, onto the music.  I could spend 50 minutes typing up all of the awesome that is Holst's The Planets.  I won't, as I've already spent too much time on this post.  "Mars, the Bringer of War" and "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" are by far the two most outstanding movements of this piece.  "Mars" gets you totes ready and pumped for battle.  "Jupiter" reminds me of that theme from Zelda.  Listen and enjoy as we recognize the launch that occurred earlier today of the Space Shuttle Discovery on it's final mission, STS-133.



Okay, so my original intention was to upload the files as a video to this bloggy thing because i actually have the files for these but it was taking forever to process and I don't feel like sifting through all of the youtubes to find an acceptable one, so i've uploaded The Planets to mediafire.  Download and listen.

Gustav Holst's The Planets, Op. 32