HOLST, Gustav.

The Planets [Op. 32]. Mars, the bringer of war. Venus, the bringer of peace. Mercury, the winged messenger. Jupiter, the bringer of jollity. Saturn, the bringer of old age. Uranus, the magician. Neptune, the mystic. Full Orchestral Score.

[London], Goodwin & Tabb, [1921]. Folio, pp. [4], 187, [1]; pencil performance markings to the first movement; a good copy in the original publisher’s printed boards with decorative motif, cloth spine, a little worn, front hinge strengthened. First edition of Holst’s The Planets, one of a limited edition of only 200 copies. With the stamp of the Goodwin & Tabb Music Library; the publishers would have kept a number of copies in their lending library to send out to conductors and orchestras for use in performances.The idea for the Planets Suite was given to Holst by the poet Clifford Bax, brother of the composer Arnold Bax. The suite was an instant success at its première in 1920 due to its intriguing sonorities from the continental influences the composer had assimilated. The melody of the slow middle section of Jupiter became popular as the hymn tune Thaxted (named after the village where Holst lived for many years) with the words beginning ‘I vow to thee, my country’ by Cecil Spring-Rice; the words were written in 1918 as a response to the human cost of the first World War, with the tune added in 1921. Holst had no patriotic intentions when he originally composed the music. The Planets has influenced the music of many film and television composers.‘There are few precedents for a seven-movement orchestral work on this scale. The character studies of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition or Elgar’s Enigma Variations are individually on a much smaller scale; perhaps closer in concept as abstract pictures in sound are Debussy’s La Mer or Nocturnes. Holst was also influenced in form, though only marginally in content, by Schoenberg’s Fünf Orchesterstücke, which he heard in 1914 – the original title of The Planets was Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra. He encountered Stravinsky’s music as well for the first time in 1914, and though the influence may not seem direct, he himself admitted its importance to him. The work is often referred to as a ‘symphonic suite’, but this is not appropriate: the music’s originality does not lie in a symphonic treatment of its subject matter, but in the diversity of form and spontaneity of invention which Holst employs in each movement.‘Holst conceived The Planets at least as early as 1913, and the first movement, ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’, was completed in 1914, anticipating rather than influenced by the outbreak of World War I. ‘Venus’ and ‘Jupiter’ followed; ‘Saturn’, ‘Uranus’ and ‘Neptune’ were composed during 1915; ‘Mercury’, the third movement (planned at one stage to be the first), was not finished until 1916; the full score was completed early in 1917. The first public performance of the whole work was not given until 1920, but its reputation had already been established by the private first performance in 1918 and several subsequent partial performances. Holst recorded the work twice, in 1922–3 and in 1926, both times with the LSO. He was, along with Elgar, one of the first composers to commit his music to record, and although he was not as gifted a conductor as his senior colleague, both of the recordings are valuable documents’ (New Grove).

• GBP 1,800.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: F1166

• librero: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)