Gustav Holst: The Planets, band suites and the Thaxted tune

About Gustav Holst

Holst was born in Cheltenham on 21 September 1874 into a family with professional musicians in the previous three generations. Neuritis in his right arm ended any hope of a piano career, and he went to the Royal College of Music in 1893, studying composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and meeting Ralph Vaughan Williams two years later. He played the trombone professionally to pay his way and taught for most of his life, at St Paul's Girls' School from 1905 and at Morley College from 1907 to 1924. He died in London on 25 May 1934.

The Planets was written between 1914 and 1917. Adrian Boult conducted a private first performance at the Queen's Hall on 29 September 1918, and the first complete public performance followed on 15 November 1920, with the London Symphony Orchestra under Albert Coates. Holst turned the central tune of Jupiter into the hymn tune Thaxted in 1921 for 'I Vow to Thee, My Country', and Michael Perry's 'O God Beyond All Praising', published in 1982, is sung to the same melody.

The catalogue holds 44 scores, 35 of them filed as classical, eight unclassified and one as rock, which is probably an arrangement rather than an original work. The Second Suite in F, completed in 1911 and published in 1922, supplies the march built on Morris Dance, Swansea Town and Claudy Banks, and its slow movement, on the Hampshire folk song I'll Love My Love, circulates separately as a Song Without Words. The First Suite in E-flat of 1909 is represented by its Intermezzo in a transcription for clarinet quintet.

Listening and playing notes

The Jupiter chorale is deceptive: the harmony is simple, but the tune spans a twelfth and needs a long breath, so pick a tempo that lets the phrase finish without a scramble. In Mars, the 5/4 pattern must stay mechanical while the brass accents cut across it; in Venus, the opposite applies, and the solo lines need room. The band suites reward attention to Holst's folk sources, because the tunes are quoted, not developed, and the joins between them are part of the effect.

Selected scores

1. Jupiter Chorale

   The central hymn tune of Jupiter, the most-viewed Holst score here and the melody later named Thaxted.

2. O God Beyond All Praising

   Michael Perry's hymn text of 1982, sung to Thaxted and therefore to Holst's Jupiter tune.

3. The Planets: II. Venus, the Bringer of Peace

   The second movement, slow and thinly scored, with a long solo violin line.

4. The Planets: I. Mars, the Bringer of War

   The first movement, built on a relentless 5/4 ostinato; the catalogue's title numbers it third.

5. Intermezzo for Clarinet Quintet

   An arrangement of the Intermezzo from the First Suite in E-flat, Op. 28 No. 1, scored for four clarinets and bass clarinet.

6. The Planets: IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

   The movement that contains the big tune, stated broadly before the opening music returns.

7. March from the Second Suite in F

   The opening movement of the 1911 band suite, which weaves together Morris Dance, Swansea Town and Claudy Banks.

8. The Planets: III. Mercury, the Winged Messenger

   A short, scurrying scherzo, the lightest movement of the seven.

9. Song Without Words (I'll Love My Love)

   The slow movement of the Second Suite, based on a Hampshire folk song, here set for piano and viola.

10. Jupiter (Piano and Violin Arrangement)

    A chamber transcription of the fourth movement, one of many arrangements the suite has attracted.