![]() However, by the time of the first public performance in 1919 it had been renamed The Planets. ![]() The piece was originally entitled Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra, probably inspired by Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces, which Holst had attended a performance of in January 1914. They continued to play this version in concerts and rehearsals in various parts of the country, and also to visiting conductors, including Adrian Boult. Instead it was scored for a single organ, but the orchestral version has the addition of an offstage choir of women’s voices.Īs it was being composed, Vally Lasker and Nora Day played the two piano version to Holst, movement by movement. The exception to this version was the last movement, Neptune, as Holst considered the piano to be unsuitable as it was not mysterious enough for the distant planet. On this score Holst would mark indications of instrumentation in red ink and his amanuenses worked from this to produce the full orchestral score. The help of colleagues was necessary due to neuritis pain which Holst frequently suffered in his right hand. The piece was composed in a version for four hands, two pianos and was scored by two of his colleagues at St Paul’s, Vally Lasker and Nora Day, who acted as amanuenses. Originally, Holst composed The Planets on the piano, using a piano in his newly built sound-proofed room in the music wing at St Paul’s Girls School, as well as the piano at home in Thaxted. The concept of the work is astrological rather than astronomical, with each movement intended to convey the different ‘personalities’ of the planets and the ideas and emotions associated with the influence of the planets on the psyche not the Roman deities. ![]() It was during this time that Holst first started thinking about a piece of music inspired by the planets. As a result Holst became quite a devotee of the subject and became an enthusiastic creator of horoscopes, casting them for his friends for fun. According to Bax in his book Ideas and People, it was Bax who first introduced Holst to astrology. One member of the group was Clifford Bax, a writer with an interest in the esoteric. The Planets suiteĭisillusioned and depressed by his lack of success as a composer, Holst went on a walking holiday with friends to Spain in the spring of 1913. Whilst working as a teacher Holst wrote many pieces of music, including The Planets. This was followed by the teaching posts for which he is probably best well known – director of music as St Paul’s Girls’ School, Hammersmith, from 1905 until his death and director of music at Morley College from 1907 to 1924. In 1903 Holst decided to abandon orchestral playing to concentrate on composition, however his earnings as a composer were too little to live off and in 1905 he accepted the offer of a teaching post at James Allen’s Girls’ School, Dulwich which he held until 1921. After finishing at the college, Holst discovered that ‘man could not live by composition alone’ and took various organist posts at London churches and became a professional musician, playing the trombone in theatre orchestras. In 1893 Holst left Cheltenham for London to study composition at the Royal College of Music. Between 18 he attended Cheltenham Grammar School (now Pate’s Grammar School) and, after having spent four months in Oxford studying counterpoint with George Frederick Sims, organist of Merton College, Holst gave held his first concert at the Montpellier Rotunda in Cheltenham at the age of 21. When his mother, Clara, died from heart disease when he was only eight years old, Holst and his younger brother Emil (who later became known as Ernest Cossart a successful actor in the West End, New York and Hollywood) were looked after by their aunt Nina, who alongside their father, taught Holst how to play the piano and compose music.
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