Gustav Holst's suite The Planets has been the subject of frequent adaptations and additions, and many later works, particularly in popular music, have been derived from it. There are numerous references to the suite in popular culture.
The most-adapted part of The Planets is an anthemic melody found in the central section of Jupiter. In 1921, Holst was asked to write a melody for the poem "I Vow to Thee, My Country" by Sir Cecil Spring Rice. According to his daughter Imogen Holst, at the time he "was so over-worked and over-weary that he felt relieved to discover they 'fitted' the tune from Jupiter". [26] The poem and hymn "I Vow to Thee, My Country" became known as a response to the human cost of World War I. The hymn was first performed in 1925 and quickly became a patriotic anthem. Imogen commented in 1968 that for more than half a century the hymn had been affecting the original Jupiter with "unwanted associations". [27]
In 1926, the melody was published on its own, as part of the hymnal Songs of Praise . Holst gave it the name "Thaxted", after Thaxted, Essex, the English village where he lived much of his life.
Since the 1920s, the "Thaxted" melody has been widely used, both as part of "I Vow to Thee, My Country", as an instrumental, and with other lyrics, both religious and secular.
Other hymns that use the melody include "O God beyond all praising" [28] and "We Praise You and Acknowledge You" with lyrics by the Rev. Stephen P. Starke. [29]
Secular settings of the melody include:
Uses of the wordless melody include the video games Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force , [36] [37] Civilization V and Battlefield V . [38] The English heavy metal band Saxon also used the melody as an introduction to their gigs in the late 1980s. [39]
Two planets are notably not included in The Planets: Earth and Pluto. Holst had not wanted to include the Earth in his suite because the suite was based on astrology, and Earth has no astrological significance. [57] Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before Holst's death, and was hailed by astronomers as the ninth planet. (In 2006 it was redesignated as a dwarf planet.) Holst expressed no interest in writing a movement for the new planet as he had become disillusioned by the popularity of the suite, believing that it took too much attention away from his other works. [58]
In the final broadcast of his Young People's Concerts series in March 1972, conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic through a fairly straight interpretation of the suite, though he discarded the Saturn movement because he thought the theme of old age was irrelevant to a concert for children. The broadcast concluded with an improvised performance he called "Pluto, the Unpredictable". [59]
In 1999, the Hallé Orchestra commissioned English composer Colin Matthews, an authority on Holst, to write a new eighth movement, which he called "Pluto, the Renewer". Matthews also changed the ending of "Neptune" slightly so that the movement would lead directly into "Pluto". [60] Matthews dedicated the addition to the late Imogen Holst, Gustav Holst's daughter, who had been an acquaintance of his. The new movement was first performed in Manchester on 11 May 2000, with Kent Nagano conducting the Hallé Orchestra. Matthews speculated that, the dedication notwithstanding, Imogen Holst "would have been both amused and dismayed by the venture." [61]
In 2012, the Philharmonia Orchestra commissioned British composer Joby Talbot to write an ending movement to The Planets as part of their “Universe of Sound” project. Talbot called the piece “Worlds, Stars, Systems, Infinity”, and like Colin Matthew’s Pluto movement, this piece emerges from Neptune without a break, coming out of the final chords from the voices. It was premiered in an experimental fashion with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting. [62]
Japanese composer Jun Nagao arranged The Planets for the Trouvère Quartet in 2003, and added movements for both Earth and Pluto. He arranged the suite for concert band in 2014, and included in that arrangement other popular Holst melodies as well. [63]
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