Gustav Holst: The Planets with Daniel Harding and the BRSO Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunk & Daniel Harding

• Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934): The Planets:
• 1Holst: The Planets: Mars, the Bringer of War08:20
• 2Holst: The Planets: Venus, the Bringer of Peace08:48
• 3Holst: The Planets: Mercury, the Winged Messenger04:16
• 4Holst: The Planets: Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity08:23
• 5Holst: The Planets: Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age10:57
• 6Holst: The Planets: Uranus, the Magician06:11
• 7Holst: The Planets: Neptune, the Mystic09:48
• Total Runtime56:43

Info for Gustav Holst: The Planets with Daniel Harding and the BRSO

Seven musical character images – each one immensely sensual and expressive, and standing on its own like a monument. The British composer Gustav Holst, fascinated by (esoteric) astrology, chose the planets of our solar system and the characteristics attributed to them as the basis for what he referred to as musical "mood pictures" or "embodiments". Ultimately, the seven movements of his orchestral suite “The Planets”, op. 32, composed between 1914 and 1916, can also be understood as general explorations of human traits. The work had not been performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for almost three decades when, on February 25, 2022, the British conductor Daniel Harding brought it back to Munich’s concert audience in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, and with great success.

During a trip to Mallorca in the summer of 1913, Holst’s friend Clifford Bax introduced him to astrology for the first time and the composer immediately began to draw up horoscopes for himself and his acquaintances. The extent to which he actually believed in the influence of celestial bodies on personality formation played only a subordinate role here; it was the notion of a holistic system that could encompass both man and the world that fascinated him the most. His interest in astrology also offered him a welcome break from the monotony of his life as a teacher – at St. Paul's School for Girls and at Morley College, where he taught working-class adults.

A first (private) performance of the orchestral suite took place on September 29, 1918 at the Queen's Hall in London, with Adrian Boult conducting. Public performances of individual movements followed. A few months before the first public performance of the complete work, presented by Albert Coates and the London Symphony Orchestra on November 15, 1920, Holst revealed its cosmic subject. Before then, only the initiated knew what lay behind the rather cryptic movement designations. At the premiere it was above all ""Mars, the Bringer of War"" that struck a chord with a nation traumatised by World War One. Remarkably, Holst had already written this first movement of his suite in the summer of 1914, when the countries of Europe were still merely engaged in patriotic sabre-rattling. His clear-sighted portrait of the destructive machinery of war – in the relentlessly repeated 5/4 march rhythm – runs counter to the positivist characterisation of ""Mars the Warrior"" in conventional astrology."

This album by BR-KLASSIK offers the live recording of this quite topical as well as extraordinary concert event.

Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Daniel Harding, direction

Daniel Harding
made his professional conducting debut in 1994 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, serving as assistant to Sir Simon Rattle that season. The following season, he served as assistant to Claudio Abbado with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mr Harding holds the positions of music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (since 2007), artistic director of the Anima Mundi Festival in Pisa, Italy, and conductor laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Between 2016 and 2019 he was music director of the Orchestre de Paris. Harding makes regular guest appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, the Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Maestro Harding has led opera productions at La Scala in Milan, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Royal Opera in London, the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera. The French government has bestowed upon him the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2002 and named him Officier in 2017.

Since his first performance with the Concertgebouworkest in January 2004, Daniel Harding has returned to the Concertgebouworkest many times, conducting it at The Concertgebouw and on various tours. He led the orchestra in several programmes during a tour of the USA in February 2019. Mr Harding returned in August 2019 for performances in Amsterdam and Lucerne of Act II from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and in November 2020 for concert streams with works by Schubert, Stravinsky, Britten and Messiaen.

Booklet for Gustav Holst: The Planets with Daniel Harding and the BRSO