Holst's Planets Suite - and More

[ahinton]

Ah, that would be "The Asteroids Suite".

I believe that there's a cure for Asteroids (not that I've ever had cause to try it, mind)...

[ahinton]

Does Matthews' appendix stand comparison with what Holst wrote? I don't think so.

Nor, I imagine, does he.

"Neptune" is a deeply considered and beautiful ending. Adding extra movements to a popular piece smacks to me of an attempt parasitically to gain more attention for one's own work. Otherwise why not just write an independent piece?

"Neptune" is indeed as you describe it - and its fade-out ending almost calls out for nothing after it - but I still don;t believe that Colin Matthews agreed to accpot and work on that commission in order to make "an attempt parasitically to gain more attention for [his] own work". I don't know what his view of what he did is as an "independent piece" or how often if at all it's been performed as such...

[visualnickmos]

And of course, as Pluto is no longer a planet, the problem is solved.

Just play the Matthews work as a separate item. Radio 3 should like that.

There is now much renewed debate about that.

Also - I cannot stand works being 'tinkered with'

[Bryn]

. . . Also - I cannot stand works being 'tinkered with'

What, like playing Mozart keyboard sontas on a Steinway?

[ahinton]

What, like playing Mozart keyboard sontas on a Steinway?

As Mozart was Austrian, a Bösendorfer 290 would surely be far more appropriate!

[visualnickmos]

What, like playing Mozart keyboard sontas on a Steinway?

The notes are the same.

[Bryn]

The notes are the same.

Not in timbre, touch etc. when played.

Then there's:

[Serial_Apologist]

What, like playing Mozart keyboard sontas on a Steinway?

Or "The Planets" on two?

(Actually the two-piano version - or what I've heard from it - sounds amazingly good).

[Serial_Apologist]

The notes are the same.

That reminds me of a Ronnie Scott quip: "We've been asked to play 'The Yellow Rose of Texas'. We won't be playing that, but the tune we will be playing has a lot of the same notes in it".

[Bryn]

Or "The Planets" on two?

(Actually the two-piano version - or what I've heard from it - sounds amazingly good).

I am rather fond of Dave Smith's solo piano version, safly not available on CD, though I do have a recordings somewhere of a perfromance given at Schott Music a few years ago.

[Richard Barrett]

The notes are the same.

The pitches are certainly the same, and the rhythms probably pretty similar, but everything else is quite different - I guess whether or not that's important depends on whether one is actually interested in what music sounds like!

[BBMmk2]

The Planets is fine as it is. It doesn’t need anything else.

[ahinton]

The Planets is fine as it is. It doesn’t need anything else.

The biggest problem with appending anything to it is the inevitable rude interruption to the beautiful fade-out of Neptune. Colin Matthews' piece works well on its own terms, I think but I've not encountered it performed as a standalone work (although it might have been for all that I know).

[Serial_Apologist]

The biggest problem with appending anything to it is the inevitable rude interruption to the beautiful fade-out of Neptune. Colin Matthews' piece works well on its own terms, I think but I've not encountered it performed as a standalone work (although it might have been for all that I know).

I always feel the same about the fifth movement Berio later added to the four of his 1968 Sinfonia, and for similar reasons. Actually, come to think of it, the harmonies Berio deploys in that original fourth movement finale have a strangely (in both senses) Holstian quality to them.

[NatBalance]

The biggest problem with appending anything to it is the inevitable rude interruption to the beautiful fade-out of Neptune. Colin Matthews' piece works well on its own terms, I think but I've not encountered it performed as a standalone work (although it might have been for all that I know).

Have a read of my starter post on this. Pluto does not have to go at the end, and I've discovered I was right that it's orbit does sometimes cross Neptune's.