Favorite Planets Movement

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AuthorTopic: Favorite Planets Movement
Bob's Big Date
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Yes, yes. This is one of those music topics.

This one, however, is going to be a little more specific. The focus here: the Planets suite, Gustav Holst's most famous symphony and possibly the most prominent single modernist composition.

If you don't know the Planets, you're likely to be at sea here.

Which is your favorite movement, and why?

Personally, I enjoy the Uranus movement; the general structure of the piece lends an undeniable mechanical charm and energy, and it's the only piece I'd say doesn't have much in the way of compositional dead air. Neptune is a close second for being the only one (IMO) to actually evoke an astral sound, and for having a sort of haunting beauty to it.

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Guardian
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Neptune = greatness.

My friend here says Venus, but I can't seem to recall that one. I'm also thinking Mars is great.

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Guardian
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Very few classical music pieces appeal to me, but "Mars" is in the distinct minority. This is quite the uninformed opinion, as I don't believe I've heard any other elements of the suite, with the exception of "Jupiter," which I found to be bright and pleasant but certainly not as memorable as "Mars." Perhaps I'll someday get around to listening to a few of the others, but it's unlikely.

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By Committee
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It's been a long time since I've listened to The Planets, but as I recollect, Jupiter was my favorite. The fact that it was pretty prominently featured in a PS1 game called "Return Fire" may have had more to do with this than anything else.

As a side, one of my favorite classical pieces ever is Sibelius' Finlandia. Not sure why this came to my mind whilst thinking about The Planets, but there you go.
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Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
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I'm partial to Jupiter as well. It has a rare sort of sweeping majesty, and a few melodies that will never quite leave my mind. True, it's not the most astral sounding piece that could be written, but it makes up for that in grandeur.

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Posts: 3351 | Registered: Saturday, April 6 2002 08:00
Bob's Big Date
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Funny thing is that I've never liked Jupiter as much as any of the other movements. It's got a sense of grandeur, yes, but it's not got a coherent purpose to it.

It's also a lot closer to traditional than anything else in the suite, so I suppose that's why it appeals widely - and why it's been co-opted so heavily for stuff like hymns and TV documentaries on the solar system.

It just seems a little overrated to me.

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Guardian
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Uranus is the most dynamic movement and the most colourful. I'm never quite sure which one I prefer, though I like Mars, Mercury and Venus less than the rest. Saturn was Holst's own favourite and it might become mine too. That's a very interesting movement, complex and full of subtle shades.

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Polaris
Posts: 1828 | Registered: Saturday, January 11 2003 08:00
Agent
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*saunters into thread*

Yes, well... I've always found Pluto to be most fascinating... very mysterious... very... planet-like. The way the melodies and the harmonies go up and down in various directions, getting louder and softer in spots... Yep, I'd deffinately have to say that Pluto is my favorite.

*pretends to drop pen under desk and dissapears from thread*

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...b10010b...
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When I saw this topic, I expected it to be about a political movement to encourage people to have a favourite planet.
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Warrior
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I prefer straightforward and melodic writing, so that means Jupiter. Though, predictably, I like Mars as well. The others didn't really stick out to me.

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Posts: 170 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Guardian
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quote:
I've always found Pluto to be most fascinating
Hey, but you know that Pluto was not written by Holst himself, but added later on by one of his pupils, I've forgotten the name? Pluto had not yet been discovered when Holst wrote his movements. He never felt comfortable with their growing popularity, and when people urged him to come up with a Pluto piece later on, did not wish to return to the Planets' project.

Did you ever listen to the Pluto piece? :P

[ Thursday, July 07, 2005 01:14: Message edited by: ef ]

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Polaris
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I've a CD with all the planets. I find all, except for venus very beautiful. My favorite is difficult to choose. there are three that I like most: Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. From these three I like Jupiter and Mars the most. Which i like best of these two, i really don't know.

As for Pluto, the CD containing all of the planets, doesn't have a track called Pluto. So i assume its indeed not composed by Holst. I'd like to hear it though. Can somebody give me a link to wear i can find it? PLEASE!? I'm dying to hear it!

EDIT:
Come to think of it, Saturn I always found very mysterious, and it has this theme which i will remember forever:Daaaa, diiii (getting stronger) , da, daaaa, doooo. (getting softer) da, di, de, do, daaaa and so on.

EDIT 2:
This is abit of topic, but lets get'on with it (as said in the Holy grail(Monthy Python).
Can anybody here give me the music piece (or a link to it) "Night on bold mountain?" By I think Rimsky Korsakov.

[ Thursday, July 07, 2005 01:43: Message edited by: Thralni ]

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Posts: 3029 | Registered: Saturday, June 18 2005 07:00
Guardian
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I googled for you, Thralni, and find that I'm wrong. It seems that Holst has written a sequel himself, though this is news to me, and I don't know if it was ever recorded. See here:
Pluto Holst
Otherwise Amazon.com has what you look for. And it's Moussorgsky.

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Polaris
Posts: 1828 | Registered: Saturday, January 11 2003 08:00
Infiltrator
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I do not know who Gustav Holst is except from the info I found on his official website: http://www.gustavholst.info/
But since he seem so famous, I guess I should check in the music record section in our local library. After all, it is part of my job to know everything (Well, I want to know everything! I also admit I am a... *Cough, cough* ...pedant.) about anything.

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Posts: 437 | Registered: Friday, May 13 2005 07:00
Agent
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quote:
Originally written by ef:

quote:
I've always found Pluto to be most fascinating
Hey, but you know that Pluto was not written by Holst himself, but added later on by one of his pupils, I've forgotten the name? Pluto had not yet been discovered when Holst wrote his movements. He never felt comfortable with their growing popularity, and when people urged him to come up with a Pluto piece later on, did not wish to return to the Planets' project.

Did you ever listen to the Pluto piece? :P

It was supposed to be a joke. I had not listened to any of the planets before this thread. I googled up a bit about them, found out there was (supposedly) no Pluto, and made a joke of it. Doesn't work quite as well when a Pluto movement does indeed exsist. So as of now I have listened to all but Pluto. Mars is deffinately my favorite, most reminiscent of Star Wars and a pc game I enjoy. The others in order; Jupiter, Venus, Uranus, Neptune, Mercury, Saturn.

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"Even the worst Terror from Hell can be transformed to a testimony from Heaven!" - Rev. David Wood 6\23\05

"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." - John Wesley
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00
Agent
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Are any of those pieces avaliable on the web or something, cause I have ZERO idea what anoy of tehm sound like, but I want to see how good musical pieces inspired by planets sound ;) .

- Archmagus Micael

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Shaper
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I just finished listening to The Planets, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Herbert von Karajan, with my computer's volume maxed. Here's my opinion:
Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus were all approximately tied for my favorite, but if I had to pick just one, I'd probably say Mars. Venus and Mercury are about even as well. They're pretty far behind the top three, but they're still really good. Neptune and Saturn I didn't really like. They both seemed pretty empty to me. I'd have to say I like Saturn better than Neptune though.
I don't know what Alec meant by "astral", but to me, all but Neptune had a sense of the power of a planet to them. Neptune just seemed to be lacking something that the others had that made them great pieces.

As a side note, The Planets made me decide to set my desktop wallpaper to a picture of Saturn, and save wallpapers of all nine planets into a folder. However, the only wallpaper-shaped image of Mercury I can find is a collage of satellite photos and looks really bad, and I can't find any photos of Uranus that include the rings. Can anyone help me out here?

Also, the day Alec started this thread, a three-topic sample issue of Kids Discover magazine arrived in my mailbox. The first topic was The Solar System. Coincidence? Probably.

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Bob's Big Date
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Mercury is a tiny planet dwarfed by the relatively nearby sun; it's going to be difficult to impossible to find even an artistic image of it, because it's honestly not that striking physically as any other planet, and it's noteworthy in that only about 40% of its surface has actually been photographed by satellite, and taking any kind of photographic representation through a telegraph is impossible.

So a good photographic-quality image of Mercury will exist in our lifetimes, but until they send more satellites and then mock one up - probably not going to happen.

I don't think any good photographs of Uranus with the rings exist, but this one seems okay.

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Law Bringer
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Sadly, Mars is the only one of them I ever heard, and that mostly because I found out it was used as the intro screen music in Escape Velocity Nova. I've been planning to get a CD of the entire suite some time, but always put it off so far.

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Master
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Yeah, I think this topic would get a lot more traffic by asking what your favorite planet is. I've never heard any of the music, but my favorite planet would have to be Saturn.

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Uhh... *declares boycott*

That was the first time I'd heard Mars too, Aran. My school band has been begging the director to get us the music, but he still hasn't, for whatever reason. Personally I'd prefer Jupiter, but one against 80+ isn't great odds...

Does anyone know of a recording of Holst's Pluto? I'd heard the same thing, that he didn't write it and a student took over for him... I'd like to hear that.

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And though the musicians would die, the music would live on in the imaginations of all who heard it.
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Posts: 3351 | Registered: Saturday, April 6 2002 08:00
Shaper
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quote:
Originally written by George A. Custer & The SE Party:

...taking any kind of photographic representation through a telegraph is impossible.
No kidding. :P

quote:
Originally written by Mister Maoben:

Yeah, I think this topic would get a lot more traffic by asking what your favorite planet is. I've never heard any of the music, but my favorite planet would have to be Saturn.
I had actually never heard any of them until last night. This thread made me want to seek out the music, and I'm thankful for it. IMHO, a thread about favorite planets would be dull in the extreme, assuming it didn't change topic.

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Shaper
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I have not heard all of them yet, but of the ones I have heard I am fond Mars and Jupiter. I like the calm and subtle essence of Neptune, as I'm always drawn to softer sounds. Saturn is the only one I have heard so far that I'm not too into.

I would really like to hear the others, so perhaps I'll get a CD.

[ Thursday, July 07, 2005 19:20: Message edited by: Dolphin. ]

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Nena
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You can download midi excerpts from this website.

The Planets

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"Even the worst Terror from Hell can be transformed to a testimony from Heaven!" - Rev. David Wood 6\23\05

"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." - John Wesley
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Shaper
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Thank you, Jewels.

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I like Venus for reasons similar to Neptune, and I don't really like Uranus.

[ Friday, July 08, 2005 07:16: Message edited by: Dolphin. ]

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