{"id":110,"date":"2018-10-01T20:24:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T20:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trulyone.net\/blog\/?p=110"},"modified":"2018-10-01T20:24:15","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T20:24:15","slug":"a-modern-take-on-the-planets-suite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trulyone.net\/blog\/events\/a-modern-take-on-the-planets-suite\/","title":{"rendered":"A modern take on the Planets Suite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last night I attended an event at Windsor Planetarium and Science Centre celebrating 100 years of the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst.<\/a>\n Composed between 1914 and 1916, the original was released on 29 Sep \n1918 at a time when very little was known about the planets themselves. \nHolst\u2019s concept was therefore astrological rather then astronomical. \nThese modern compositions, performed by the Ligeti Quartet<\/a>, have re-imagined the characteristics of the planets from a more modern, scientific perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The description of the evening from their web site was, \u201cInspired by \nmodern astronomy and music, the Ligeti Quartet perform 8 new planetary \nworks, spanning contemporary classical, electronica to jazz, created \nespecially for planetariums.\u201d From this description, and having never \nheard of the Ligeti Quartet, I was expecting a variety of different \nmusical styles and instruments. I was slightly surprised to find it was a\n string quartet throughout the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The composers worked with leading scientists. For each of the eight \nplanets (Holst had only written for seven, leaving Earth out.) a \ncomposer was paired with a scientist who would mentor them and describe \nvarious facts, figures and characteristics of their allocated planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evening began with a talk and presentation from Professor Carl Murray<\/a>\n who worked on the NASA\/ESA Cassini mission to Saturn. He described some\n of the structure of the rings and explained the hexagonal cloud pattern\n which persists at the north pole of the planet. It was a privilege to \nbe able to hear from someone so closely connected with just one of the \nplanets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event was marvellously staged, with the audience viewing high \nresolution visuals of the planets themselves above their heads while the\n four members of a string quartet recite from positions equally spaced \naround the circular walls. Each planet was introduced by a voice-over \nfrom comedian and impressionist Jon Culshaw who would describe the \nplanet and composition followed up by a witty comment in the style of \nCarl Sagan, Patrick Moore or Brian Cox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening to the music itself wasn\u2019t quite what I was expecting. In \nmy time I have listened to a lot of music which could well be described \nas inaccessible: from hardcore techno to Indonesian Gamelan music, but a\n lot of what I heard at this event went beyond any of that. I was in \nslight disbelief that each piece was from a different composer as many \nof pieces shared common elements such as intense discords, strange time \nsignatures and aggressive playing,representing the chaos and violent \ncharacteristics of the respective planet.\n From the programme for the event we are told that for example: Composer\n Mira Calix has written her piece in 6\/8 and 3\/4 time signatures \nrepresenting it\u2019s 3:2 orbit:spin ratio. Or that Richard Bullen based his\n composition on the orbital resonance of the moon of Jupiter. All very \ninteresting but doesn\u2019t appeal to the listener if it ends up sounding \nlike a bag of kittens being beaten to death with a set of bagpipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not an expert in music theory and it felt like there was little \nto please the casual listener. The compositions were designed to convey \nthe facts, figures and tangible attributes of the various planets, very \nseldom did it feel like it tried to express the emotional attributes of \nthe planets. Exceptions to this were the Earth composition which managed\n to convey a beautiful and ancient planet which has developed over time.\n The Mars composition featured an animation of the Mars Curiosity Rover \naccompanied with music which brought a sense of isolation. Aside from \nthat, if you were to play a sample to someone without telling them what \nit was about, they would be unlikely to say, \u201cAh, that\u2019s Uranus!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was slightly disappointed it was a mere 4 instruments. Don\u2019t\n get me wrong, the Ligeti Quartet are immensely talented and \nunquestionably they faithfully conveyed the composers\u2019 intentions, \nhowever, these instruments were \nall available to Holst in 1918. If the compositions are to be updated, \nthen why not also the instruments? Where were the synthesizers, drum \nmachines and computers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does this compare with Holst\u2019s concept? Well it doesn\u2019t really. \nHolst had no intention of composing music representing scientific fact, \nhe wanted to make music which affected the psyche and conveyed the \nemotional characteristics of the astrological planets. Listening to his \nwork 100 years on, this concept is still clear. He used the power and \nbreadth of an entire orchestra to do this. Even listening to it on home \nspeakers the drama and emotion is all there: a timeless masterpiece of \nwork that will endure well beyond our current understanding of planetary\n science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The compositions will be available to listen online at sounduk.net<\/a> from 11 Oct<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links:<\/h6>\n\n\n\n