Discovering Classical Music #1 - Holst The Planets
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Episode 1: A Listening Guide to Holst The Planets
Presented by Oscar Osicki
0:20 - Introduction to "Discovering Classical Music" Series
0:49 - The Mission of This Series
2:12 - Introduction to Holst and The Planets
4:44 - Mars, The Bringer of War
8:38 - Venus, The Bringer of Peace
10:05 - Mercury, The Winged Messenger
11:04 - Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity
14:07 - Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age
16:47 - Uranus, The Magician
17:58 - Neptune, The Mystic
20:04 - Recommended Recordings
Remember to Like, Comment, and Subscribe
RECORDINGS:
Boult Conducts Holst The Planets and Elgar Enigma:
amzn.to/2UcUnn1
Rattle Conducts Holst the Planets and New Works:
amzn.to/2HR6rDW
PODCAST DETAILS:
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iTunes:
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Spotify URI:
spotify:show:5FRwbWaK5jIjiuC6z4mOwi
Stitcher:
www.stitcher.com/s?fid=383673...
This podcast episode features a full talk through of Holst's The Planets, discussing each movement in turn - Mars The Bringer of War, Venus The Bringer of Peace, Mercury The Winged Messenger, Jupiter Bringer of Jollity, Saturn Bringer of Old Age, Uranus The Magician, and Neptune The Mystic.
It explores how we might enjoy listening to Holst's The Planets, and how we can listen for a more enriching experience. The podcast ends with recommended recordings.
RSS Feed:
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Subscribed! Thank you very much.
Please do a podcast episode on the Soviet composers.
Are these no longer available on Any podcast apps? I can’t find them anywhere other than TH-cam. I am on the third episode but I love having a deeper understanding of the music. You should definitely do more of these if you can
Just a quick heads up, Caelus was Saturn’s father and the Roman god of the sky, so when astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus, fellow scientist Johann Elert Bode suggested using Caelus’s Greek counterpart, Ouranos. This would be soon Latinized to Uranus.
New world - Antonin Dvorak?
I would love that!
Oooh that would be cool.
It's the piece that gave me the most joy to play in the symphony!
Yes, Yes please
everyone would love that!
All time favorite symphony.
Hi All - I will be starting a Podcast series full time, particularly for while I'm doing my Masters and don't have the facility to make full length videos. I'm really excited for many of the episodes I've got planned!
Within the next week or so I'll get it set up properly as a Podcast, with all the feeds and all that done properly (I'm new to this). For now you can enjoy this on TH-cam, and I will post every episode on TH-cam as well as on Podcast channels. I'm not going to set up the Podcast things right away though as I'm enjoying my vacation.
This format is great! Are you planning to put it on Spotify?
@@maviemuchris2603 Maybe! Hadn't thought of that. I'm very new to all this - it should come up on iTunes etc. once I've got that all set up. Time for me to go for a swim in the sun now...
Inside the Score, good luck with your masters - rest assured that I‘ll be enjoying your content in the meantime! 😊
I'm so glad that you are starting a Podcast. I find your videos interesting and educational.
I loved this video. I can't wait to hear the podcast!
This is one of those rare videos that I wish I could give multiple thumbs up to, as it deserves so much exposure on the platform. Needless to say, I will listen to all forthcoming podcasts in this series. Thanks!
In Saturn, with the chord towards the end, you mention it was an interesting way for Holst to consider old age. I like to think of what leads up to it as someone coming to be terrified of death approaching, our awareness of our mortality, and then, eventually--after fighting with our denial of death (more than once)--we reach a moment of serenity in surrendering to it, and find our capacity for noble acceptance of our old age: that's the chord. Which reminds me of two thoughts: Aging gracefully is graceful because it is done with accepting; and, Viktor Frankl discussing old age as not something for the youth to fear, but a position in life to be envied by the youth--what life they have already lived, how full that is, how much proof of having lived they contain within themselves.
I just love how Neptune makes you feel like you're out in deep, deep space.
Firebird Suite - Stravinsky
The Triumph Of Time - Harrison Birtwistle
A Night on Bald Mountain - Mussorgsky
The Rite of Spring - Stravinsky
Symphony No. 9 - Beethoven
Danse Macabre - Camille Saint-Saëns
William Tell Overture - Rossini
The Ring Cycle - Wagner
Toccata and Fugue in D minor - Bach
Four Seasons - Vivaldi
Symphony No. 5 - Mahler
Mahler's Fifth! Yes!
The best piece in The Planets is Neptune, no question. That choir is haunting
I am so glad to have found this work . It brings me fond memories of my father teaching me how to appreciate classical music 30 years ago. BRAVO! I am reawakened to my love for classical with you.
OH MY GOD I LOVE THE PLANETS!
Same!
Whats your favorite recording on spotify
@@eduard6266 I’m not a Spotify person, but I’m gonna go with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. I don’t know how Sir Charles Mackerras does all seven movements so perfectly. Only the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s recording of “Neptune” comes close to that of the RLPO.
@@eduard6266 James Levine with the Chicago Philharmonic is by far the best!
I would love to hear about other great works of the 20th century, like Debussy's La Mer, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe, Stravinsky's the Rite of Spring and Bartok's concerto for orchestra. Also some great symphonies, like Dvorak's 9th, Rachmaninoff's 2nd, etc.
when I was in high school and took humanties class, I actually didn't know what this piece was entirely (although I played the violin since age 5 and in orchestra a lot. in class they had us draw what we heard. and they played Mars bringer of war (though they didn't tell us the name of the song) I literally drew a bunch of airplanes and dog fights and armies fighting a war. and that one point where you hear that climax and long note, I drew a mushroom cloud.oddly, 2 months after class ended, (I had gone to Interlochen for 5 summers) we played Mars, Saturn and Jupiter that summer, and some other stuff too.holst sure did a good job conveying the message.
Growing up, my father introduced me to classical music, but my attraction to it had a lot to do with its filmic capacity. This piece in particular - one my father didn't have to introduce me to - appealed because of its influence over my imagination, but became a favorite due to its textural variety.
Now, having you explain it in the way you do, I've found a new appreciation for it and am off to listen after finishing this comment. I absolutely love this channel and what you're doing to bring classical forward to a contemporary audience. Yours is one of three channels I set notifications on. Keep up the great work! I wish I could help support you financially.
The first recording of The Planets I ever bought - and still a favorite - was William Steinberg and the Boston Symphony.
"The Planets" is the first classical music album I bought when I was a teenager. It was (is) the interpretation by Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, directed by Charles Dutoit in 1987. I understand why I should refrain from seeing images when listening to music, but this is really hard to do for me with "The Planets." Gustav Holst's music is so evocative that all sorts of scenes immediately pop in my mind. In Mars, I cannot help but see a battlefield, with bombs and rockets and cavalry. In Venus, it is a beautiful garden by a river at sunset. Jupiter is indeed a feast for the gods. Saturn is an old man remembering his glory days with grief and finally accepting that they are over. And it is impossible to hear Neptune without seeing the ocean and the deeps.
Visualizing how you feel when listening to something is a more than acceptable form of enjoying music. If you want to listen and analyze each sound and pay attention to them closely, then you are also free to do so. But yeah, there's more than one way of enjoying music
I really love The Planets too and how they capture a very vivid and atmospheric feeling that immerses me extremely well
For me the initial problem was less "stop visualizing" than "stop trying to see a story". Whenever I listen to Mars i can't help but see cavalry charges in my head in some parts, but when I first listened to it I felt a bit frustrated because after the charge ""the cavalry didn't go anywhere"". I think the advice is useful if you're not used to the highly abstract expression of classical music.
Fun Fact - Holst was commissioned to write music to the poem "I vow to thee my Country" at which point he used the famous section of Jupiter as his basis.
I love this! I played the planets in a double orchestra last year (1st violin) and it was a blast! Mars and Uranus were my favourites to play, but I love listening to Neptune and the ending of Saturn.
I would love to hear a podcast on Smetana’s Ma Vlast, or if you’re up for it (perhaps in a four part) Wagner’s Ring!
Thank you for this informative video. I'll be interested in more of them.
I've been quite well acquainted with The Planets for nearly 50 years now, and having become familiar with it initially via a recording of Sir Adrian Boult and the London Symphony Orchestra, i totally agree with you that it's probably the best rendition; although I'm also very familiar with the Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra rendition, which is also very good. The tempo and pauses in the right places are crucial to making it good or bad.
In listening to The Planets, I've thought to dwell on the individual planets and seek out the personalities ,experiences and wisdom they individually would have as Gustav Holst depicts them.
Did Holst use a massive organ in Uranus?
Yes, l know; very childish but l couldn't resist. 😊
I think The Planets was what turned me on to classical music as a boy and it still has a special place in my heart all these decades later.
Many thanks for this.
I like the Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert von Karajan, 1981 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin. Great tempi and wonderful recording!
I will eagerly be waiting for your future output.
Thank you !
One of my favorite, American composers Aaron Copeland, who I was introduced to because Keith Emerson used in a lot of his music, and I can remember a time when Aaron Copeland was being interviewed and he said He was influenced by Holtz Just amazing when you think about it. Thank you so much. Be safe out there.
The planets is one of my favorite works, one of the first I listened to seriously
As a person who only listens to short solo works or single movements handpicked from soloist instrument concertos, your insight on how the modern world lacks appreciation of big works of art by only listening to short 3 minute songs and your careful scrutiny of each work, really inspires me to listen to large works more as a whole rather than handpicking them by listening to only one movement.
I really think that the world really needs to learn to lay down and appreciate long meditative music, rather than shuffling through their library filled with 3-5 minute music like it's their narcotics inventory.
Nicely made review! I have listened to these pieces a ton and still learned more that I missed! Thanks man!
I’m soo excited for this series.
I love this piece of music so much. Thank you for making this episode.
Holst. I love this to death. Avoiding Mars' bad mood, lounging with Venus, flitting across the skies with Mercury, having a night out with Jupiter, waking up to a hangover with Saturn, good automated breakfast with Uranus, and a relaxing day by the sea with Neptune.
Loved this video! Great breakdown and I like that you encourage listeners to go listen on their own and don't spoil too much of the goodness. Since everyone else is offering up suggestions, mine would be Rite of Spring, Harmonielehre by John Adams, and Lincolnshire Posy by Grainger.
Some of my favorite arrangements of all time, thanks for sharing!
Just discovered this series. What a wonderful introduction to a stunning piece of music.
I love The Planets, especially Jupiter
Awesome podcast, thank you! I recently stumbled across the Planets suite and was amazed how modern it sounds.
This is brilliant, absolutely top notch content and look forward to you covering other pieces! Thanks ITS.
Excellent analysis of all of the movements. This is one of my favorite pieces of all time, if not one of my favorites then my absolute favorite.
One of my favorite works for the last 30 years. Every movement is mysterious and delightful. Thank you for your guided tour into the intricacies of the piece.
The Planets is just... Brilliant. And seeing a video where you present this pieces is just beautiful. And you narration seem to be really good as well. Keep up that good work
This is some of the best music ever. Thank you for the vid.
This is my most absolutely favorite piece.
Thanx so much for sharing your hard work, high intelligence and musical sensitivity!
You changed my life this podcast is the best thank you and please continue
Thank you for your excellent an thoughtful work! Im learning so much and being inspire.
The Planets is so amazingly beautiful, I discovered it because of an metal band called Bathory, I do not regret it anyway, thank you!
I like your discriminations of the themes. It is already one of my favourite pieces but I'm enjoying your commentary. Thank you.
looking very much forward to the next one. very well narrated!
I've always loved this music, and that ethereal ending as we journey past the last (in Host's time) planet into deep eternal space. The Planets to me has always been one of those works that, familiar though it becomes, never gets tired or ceases to grab my emotions when I hear it. Thanks for the great essay on this wonderful music!
This brought up so many feelings and memories from playing Mars in the orchestra. An emotional and powerful piece presented in a very insightful and entertaining commentary. Thank you!
I’m very much looking forward to your podcast!
I bought the Berlin recordings a month or so ago and I had only listened to the songs from Holst’s Planets Suite individually.
After listening to some of those modern songs: Pluto, Asteroid, etc. it was very unsettling at first, but I learned to love them when I listened to the recordings as a whole. :)
This is brilliant!!
Yes, I love Enigma! I would love a podcast on it!
And I absolutely love Holst! This was an awesome video!
I’ve been binging the (at the point of writing this) 7 episodes of this series; it’s absolutely magnificent and incomparable to any other material on this platform. Fantastic!
I love this channel its a gem to see one of your videos show up in my subscription feed
Your series is rapidly becoming one of my favorite channels on youtube, and I will be following your podcasts once you post the address. I hope you will do more of the 'classical era' forms, as you did with sonata form, eg rondo, theme and variation, minuet & trio to scherzo, perhaps some baroque forms as well, such as passacaglia and suites, and how these forms are still in use today, and can even be found in pop music.
I've often thought of The Planets as a sort of super-symphony. First movement is a dramatic, high-energy movement, the second movement more lyrical ala romanze, the third movement scherzo-ish, the fourth movement lively and as if to wrap things up with the hymn. But then the last three movements unexpectedly repeat the emotional sequences of movements 2 (lyrical, elegiac), 3 (humorous) and 4 (ethereal), all of them taking on an even more other-worldly sound.
Thank you for this whole channel. Classical Nerd got me into the history side of classical music, but your channel helps me actually listen and analyze the music which helps me with playing (I didn't have the privilege of being musical as a child, so now I'm catching up as an adult.)
Just Perfect! Very well done. Congrats from Brazil.
I loved it! Enjoyed every minute, thank u so much!! Keep doing it 💙 xoxo from brazil
8:27 you cut out the best moment of the whole piece!! i'm literally crying from tension!
Outstanding, I've always remembered this one kid comedy film from my childhood called Spaced Invaders for how incredibly powerful the intro soundtrack felt and how odd it was for it to be present on a sci-fi comedy. The piece echoed forever in my memory more than anything in that movie, like an unquenched thirst for the epic space opera the composition allured to. Fast forward to today and your upload reveals to me it was "Mars, The Bringer of War" all along.
True so true every now and then one needs a musical time out.
I used to listen to Suppers Ready , seconds out version, once I got home from school. It was my sisters LP and I would put it back before she got home from work, even though she never played it to my knowledge. It was hard going at first but I grew to love it and it was the stepping stone to classical music for me.
I went to my cities philharmonic orchestra last week because I found out they were playing the planets (found out, more like had been planning this since last year when they told us their 2018/19 programming). It was seriously amazing, and they had a huge orchestra for it. I believe the conductor said that there were over 100 people on the stage when they included the women's choir (though they weren't actually on the stage). I've listened to this suite many times while at home, but hearing it live and actively listening to every single planet, not just my favourites was something else. This was actually posted on the day I went to see it, and I wish I had watched this before I went so I could have kept some of these things in mind.
This is excellent. Thank you
This is my favorite piece
Great video. Gustav is my favorite composer and this is my favorite suite.
Thank you for this, it's fascinating. 🙂
All very interesting. I absolutely love The Planets suite.
Thank you very much. I am learning a lot!
Bro, you said not to imagine anything when listening to the music in terms of visuals and then you just started painting pictures in my head during Jupiter
Great podcast !
this piece got me into classical
I'd love to see you continue making the quick guides to Beethoven's symphones in this podcast format.
Mercury has one of the best crescendos in all of classical music.
Keep making these.
Thankyou very much!!!
My favourite version is with Vernon Handley conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the first fully digital recordings from 1993, fantastic performance and produced so well, each instrument sounds beautiful, whoever did the mix and production did an incredible job
Excellent summary of a great work! My favorite recording is by Bernard Herrmann. It is quite unique with very slow Tempi which just makes the drama even greater.
Funny you put this out the same night I saw The Planets for the first time, played by the Hamilton philharmonic orchestra, in Ontario, Canada. Great podcast, looking forward to more.
Favor ver nota aparte gracias
Awesome job! I agree with Michael Tsi's comment for the next pieces for the series, especially Also Sprach Zarathustra!
this is really good 👌
The performance at Proms 2016 is my favorite
I love this peace. My fav performis is with gardner
Great channel and idea! Looking forward to more of your explanations! Thanks so much. EDIT: And I wasn't disappointed. :)
This is fantastic work, thank you for sharing!
I'm currently studying a masters in conducting, and I'm very interested in making classical music more accessible and less elitist. There's something in here for the trained musician and for the novice, which isn't easy to do!
I'd be very interested to hear more about your research. A live version of a podcast like this accompanied by a full performance of the work is an incredibly exciting idea.
Thanks - that's great Tim!
Excellent choice for podcast #1. No surprise: Boult's recording was the first classical LP I bought for myself years ago, after listening to the public library's offerings. I'm old enough now to recognize Saturn as the best movement. Love to hear your insights, even on old favorites like this.
Yes and in my youth I thought Saturn was the one to skip. I was so wrong
FYI: What you're describing in the beginning about our decreasing attention span and daily distractions is the main theme in the book _The Shallows_ by Nicholas Carr. He does, however, approach the subject in regard to reading literature, rather than listening to music.
For The Series:La Mer,Rite Of Spring,Also Sprach Zarathustra,New World Symphony
Great Video :)
Amazing job! My favorite of them is Saturn. There's is real magic in this movement. I also like Uranus, which reminds me of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but more sinister.
Another great performance is by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This double CD also includes Richard Strauss' full "Also Sprach Zarathustra" as well as the concert suites for "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". As "The Planets" has influenced John Williams' music, he has released his own recording with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Yes the best score of the early 20th century
I would love an episode that is a roadmap of Classical music. From a 4 piece chamber orchestra up to the biggest collection of musicians.
I usually imagine some sort of visuals when I’m listening to any type of music and it actually enhances the experience of listening for me.
P.s.
I really enjoyed this podcast. I would hope that you put it on Spotify, so I could listen while being able to close my phone.
Firstly, I think the new format is great and presented very well. You're doing what I, as a composer, have wanted to see for a while - that is to say making these musical ideas which I think everyone can grasp accessible, without getting bogged down in terminology.
One idea I couldn't quite get behind was the thought that it's best to avoid associating the music with imagery. I'm sure there's some thinking behind this but I don't feel like it's properly established why it's a good idea and I'm not sure it is. The kind of imagination I have, I am prone to imagining purely musical ideas in my head, so it's very easy for me to engage with a piece on a purely musical level. But others - those, perhaps, with more visual imaginations may find that translating what they hear into a story or a set of images helps them to access the work.
It also feels like it draws a line between programme and non-programme music, since programme music itself comes with imagery, inherently. And I've always been wary of that line. Indeed, while The Planets isn't exactly a programmatic work it's not devoid of imagery. Even with my very audio-based imagination, in the context of WW1 it's hard not to picture automatic gunfire in that opening rhythm of Mars, and in Saturn at the climax it's hard not to think of a room full of chiming clocks. Indeed, when trying to describe what the music is like you yourself conjure several visual metaphors - when you talk about the 3/4 part of Jupiter, for example.
Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to more from this series, especially if it can help unlock works I'm less familiar with than this one! (I recently heard the Mackerras/Liverpool Philharmonic which I think has a marvellous, fierce energy to it)
I agree with your statements about imagery. Plenty of people simply listen differently and if imagery enhances their experience or makes it more accessible to them, I'm all for it.
I agree especially with saturn where the dreadful music slowly builds up it's hard for me not to imagine someone aging and getting closer to death like it seems to me this kind of imagery was intended by the composer.
Finally a new video to enrich our life with classical music
Sorry for the long wait!
@@InsidetheScore Good things take time ;) Expect Bachs works
The Planets - one of my favorites. My introduction to it was at Laserium, where one of the displays was to Neptune (in the 1970's). Then I picked up the LP put out by Tomita. Then I got an orchestral LP of it. Haven't listened to the whole piece in decades. Can I make some requests? Respighi, The Pines of Rome (another one that I first heard a movement at that same Laserium); Copeland, Billy the Kid Suite, Rodeo; Grofe, Grand Canyon Suite; Stravinski, FIrebird Suite...
Grand canyon suite, haven't heard that since childhood, thanks for reminding me. My father used to listen to it
I am convinced that in some outer reaches of the galaxy that choir is still singing those eerie notes.
Just subscribed today.
Really enjoy these as both a primer to music I haven't heard before an to things I've heard and want to appreciate more. Could you do some Sibalius? I can't get into the few bits I've heard.
Thank you, very useful. Would be perfect to watch score examples in the video along with the narration
I like the Jupiter movement of this work.
Thank you ever so much for sharing your take on this. We played the watered down version of the Jupiter piece back in High School and loved that grand theme. I sadly didn't look more into it, and frankly I think our conductor could have educated us more about it as well. I look forward to what else you produce!