THE PLANETS Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor: Owain Arwel Hughes
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Job Title Title Job Catalogue No. Customer Page Spread Compact DiscBooklet:Double CD_DPS1 Template: CTP 01 HOLST THE PLANETS MARS 7' 57 02 HOLST THE PLANETS VENUS 8' 44 03 HOLST THE PLANETS MERCURY 4' 11 04 HOLST THE PLANETS JUPITER 8' 23 05 HOLST THE PLANETS SATURN 8' 49 06 HOLST THE PLANETS URANUS 6' 01 07 HOLST THE PLANETS NEPTUNE 8' 05 08 MATTHEWS PLUTO 5' 56 09 HOLST A SOMERSET RHAPSODY 10' 35 TOTAL RUN TIME 68' 41 Manufactured intheEU performance andbroadcastingprohibited. reproduction, hiring,lending,public All rightsreserved.Unauthorisedcopying, c p Notes: BrendanBeales2004 Front coverartwork:GraphicImpressions Royal PhilharmonicOrchestraLtd. All rightsinthisrecordingarethepropertyof April, 2004 on 26thand27th Colosseum Recorded atWatford Engineer Producer CambridgeSingers The Choir Hughes Arwel Owain Conductor 2016RoyalPhilharmonicOrchestra. 2004RoyalPhilharmonicOrchestra. Tony Faulkner Tony MartinCompton Page Nos.8/1 Conductor: Owain Arwel Hughes Arwel Owain Conductor: PhilharmonicOrchestra Royal THE PLANETS MAGENT CYAN COLOURS BLACK YELLOW A CTP Template: CD_DPS1 COLOURS Compact Disc Booklet: Double Page Spread CYANCYAN MAGENTA Customer MAGENTA Customer YELLOW Catalogue No. BLACK Job Title Page Nos. 2/76/32/3 Colin Matthews (b.1946) PLUTO,PATRON: THE HRH RENEWER THE DUKE OF YORK Although the RPO embraces twenty-first century opportunities, including appearances ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & with pop stars and on video game, film soundtracks and on CD, its artistic priority remains Although the planet Pluto was discovered during Holst’s lifetime he was never tempted to add an eighth movement to his suite. ThisPRINCIPAL may have CONDUCTORbeen because he: CHARLESalready regretted DUTOIT that paramount: the making of great music at the highest level for the widest possible audience. the overwhelming popularity of The Planets had obscured his other work, but was more likely The RPO’s versatility and high standards mark it out as one of today’s most open-minded, because he felt that the work was already a satisfying whole. Indeed, the argument still rages over whether or not Pluto is actually a planet, and recently it has been reclassified as a forward-thinking symphony orchestras. Now it proudly looks forward to the future. Themember Royal Philharmonicof the new ‘dwarf Orchestra planet’ (RPO) category. has been at the forefront of music-making in the UK sinceWhen its theformation Halle Orchestrain 1946. Its asked home Colin base Matthewssince 2004 to at complete London’s the Cadogan planetary Hall set,serves to beas a ‘The RPO do sensuousness uncommonly well. The end result was rich yet delicate, with springboardperformed forin the fourteen year 2000, residencies they madeacross the the perfect country. choice With ofmore composer. concerts Faced than anywith other the wonderfully liquid woodwind solos and an exquisite sheen on the strings.’ seemingly impossible task of carrying on where Holst left off, Matthews conceived the idea The Guardian UK large ensemble, the RPO has truly become Britain’s national orchestra. of beginning his ‘Pluto’ music as the chorus of ‘Neptune’ is dying away, and then allowing the chorus to bring the music to a close, as if they had been there all the time. The music for ‘The string and wind sections played off each other spectacularly, with careful attention to The‘Pluto’ regional writes programme, Matthews, is plus“very regular fast – faster performances even than ‘Mercury’;at Cadogan solar Hall, winds Southbank were my startingCentre’s point. The movement soon took on an identity of its own, following a path which I seemed to detail and tone. This was to be expected from the Royal Philharmonic, one of the best and Royalbe simply Festival allowing Hall andto proceed the Royal as it Albert would; Hall, in the are process conducted I came by perhaps a distinguished closer to Holst roster than of most prestigious symphonic orchestras in the world.’ The Daily Californian musicians:I had expected, Charles although Dutoit, Artistic at no pointDirector did and I think Principal to write Conductor; a pastiche”. Pinchas Zukerman, Principal Guest Conductor; Alexander Shelley, Principal Associate Conductor, and Permanent Associate Gustav Holst (1874 – 1934) A SOMERSET RHAPSODY Conductor Grzegorz Nowak. International touring is also vital to the Orchestra’s work, taking Although he never became actively engaged in the collection of English folk song, Holst was it to many prestigious destinations worldwide. fascinated by the pioneering work being done at the beginning of the twentieth century by Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp and the inimitable Percy Grainger. Fired with an enthusiasm Forthat more was thantypical twenty of them, years Holst RPO decided Resound, to write the Orchestra’ssomething based community on folk andsong, education drawing his source material from collections of West Country songs published by Sharp and Baring programme,Gould. In the has event, taken he music produced into the two heart separate of the orchestral regions thatworks the in Orchestra 1906 – Songs serves. of the The West team hasand worked New Selection with a variety of Songs of fromparticipants Somerset in –a considerablywide range ofrevising settings both including pieces the working following with year. young people, the homeless and recovering stroke patients. In its revised version, the New Selection retained only three of the original ten folk tunes, and was renamed A Somerset Rhapsody. Dedicated to Ceil Sharp, the Rhapsody is based on three Thefolk RPO songs has collected its own onlineby the radiodedicatee station, in Somerset. The Sound The of first the Royalof these Philharmonic is ‘The Sheep Orchestra, Shearing whichSong’, broadcasts heard at the via outset its website, on the and oboe RPO against TV, an an online atmospheric video channel background streaming of sustained fly-on- strings. The pastoral mood is threatened by the sound of distant trumpets and drums, which the-wallpave the shorts way for written, the marching directed song and ‘High filmed Germany’ by the (‘O musicians. Polly, love, The O Polly,Orchestra the rout has has become now increasinglybegun/ And active we muston social march media away platforms, at the beating inviting of audiences the drum’). to Thisengage is followed on Facebook, by the Twitter, third tune, ‘The Lovers’ Farewell’, a contrasting lyrical melody first heard on the cellos. A brief YouTube,‘development’ Instagram section and presents the RPO these blog. tunes It also in offers various a digitalcombinations, booking and service the Rhapsody on its app, ends RPO Rewards.quietly with a reminiscence of ‘The Sheep Shearing Song’, underpinned by a version of ‘High Germany’. CTP Template: CD_DPS1 COLOURS Compact Disc Booklet: Double Page Spread CYCYANAN MAGENTA Customer YELLOW Catalogue No. BLACK Job Title Page Nos. 4/5 Gustav Holst (1874 -1934) THE PLANETS Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity Gustav Holst once stated that, as a rule, he only studied things that suggested music to him. ‘Jupiter’ opens with a repeating three-note figure that forms the basis of two of this movement’s It was after the disappointing première of The Cloud Messenger in 1913 that Holst, declaring principal themes. The first is the rumbustious dance of Jupiter himself, announced by six that he was ‘fed up with music, especially my own’, set off on a trip around Spain with Arnold horns with heavy oom-pah accompaniment from trombones and tuba, and the second is the Bax and his brother Clifford. The latter was involved at the time on research into astrology glorious theme of the celebrated Andante section. It was Vaughan Williams who suggested and Holst quickly became enthused with the subject, pursuing it to the extent that he could that the tune should be adapted for public singing, and when Holst was subsequently asked eventually cast horoscopes for his friends. It was not long before the character of each planet to write a setting of words by Cecil Spring Rice he was delighted to discover that Rice’s words began to suggest music to the composer, and by May of 1914 he had completed ‘Mars’, the fitted his ‘Jupiter’ tune perfectly. The tune subsequently appeared as a hymn in Songs of first of a projected series originally subtitledSeven Pieces for Large Orchestra. He completed Praise under the name ‘Thaxted’, which is where Holst was living at the time of its composition. ‘Venus’ and ‘Jupiter’ the same year, and in 1915 added ‘Saturn’, ‘Uranus’ and ‘Neptune’ to his astrological suite, completing it a year later with the restless scherzo of ‘Mercury’. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age While he was still at work on The Planets, Holst composed a setting of words by Thomas The suite calls for a vast orchestra, so it is hardly surprising that performances in wartime Britain Lovell Beddoes that began ‘Woe, woe, this is death’s hour’. He soon discarded the piece, were few and far between. Holst’s friend Balfour Gardiner arranged a private performance at but the musical material was transferred to ‘Saturn’, which the composer once declared was the Queen’s Hall in September 1918, on which occasion it was conducted by Adrian Boult, but his favourite movement in the entire suite. Much of the music of The Planets explores it was not until 1920 that the suite was heard with all seven movements performed in Holst’s the principle of repeated rhythms and phrases, most tellingly perhaps in the wearied chords preferred order. heard at the beginning of this movement on flutes and harps. The music takes on the character of a funeral march, building to an overwhelming climax that presents the opening chords now Mars, the Bringer of War clearly in a state of alarm. In a letter to Adrian Boult after the first performance, Holst Although it was completed some months before the outbreak of the war, the music of ‘Mars’ suggested that this passage ‘must begin from another world and gradually overwhelm this one’. has inevitably become associated with the mechanised brutality that was soon to tear Europe apart.