Glory of The Planets

Taking pictures while an orchestra performs is bad etiquette.

 For a first concert in Colorado, the season opener of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic felt proper with the orchestra taking on Gustav Holst’s The Planets.

A front-row seat cost just $30. I have grown to enjoy close proximity tot he orchestra, where I can observe the little details of a massive orchestra. In those seats, I traded views of the full orchestra for glimpses of musicians turning pages of sheet music, how the string sections bowed and used their fingers, how the brass and woodwinds fit into the whole. Yes, the percussion was beyond view, but there’s no mistaking the timpani’s entrance into a piece.

It was a full house on Sunday afternoon. A pregnant woman with two kids under 10 sat next to me. I didn’t hear a peep during the performance. I almost forgot that this is how classical music should be, with an audience holding applause till the entire piece ended and people refraining from talk and other action during the performance.

The philharmonic started the program with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15, with Anne-Marie McDermott on piano. I confess to not knowing Mozart well, but live classical music always sounds sweeter.

I had never sat this close to a concert pianist. Her hands gracefully sped across the keyboard, moving through the concerto as if it were second nature. I badly wanted to high-five the pianist but discretion is the better part of valor and I did nothing to get myself removed from the concert hall.

The Mozart orchestra would lack the instruments to perform The Planets, so additional instruments were rolled out during the intermissions. My eye caught the two harps set up on stage right. Until I saw The Planets in person, I didn’t realize how important harp was throughout the suite, but the harpists had key moments in every movement.

Holst’s seven-movement suite refers to the planet’s astrological signs, not the actual planets, so there is no Earth and no Pluto (it hadn’t been discovered yet). During the pre-concert lecture, music director/conductor Josep Caballe-Domenech had a performer bring out a bass oboe, a rare instrument the philharmonic had to borrow to perform The Planets. The bass oboe is an octave lower than a standard oboe, but has different fingerings. The oboist had a few weeks to learn the new instrument. The whole performance was magnificent.

Mars, Bringer of War gets overused in pop culture but the entire suite deserves its due. I hear Holst hated that it became his most famous work, but sometimes artists need to chill. He’s immortal through this piece and its influence on the last century of classical music and film score thanks to its hold on John Williams (seriously, cross The Planets with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and you get the soundtrack to Star Wars – not a complaint, but those pieces weigh heavily).

Holst immediately shifts gears with the quiet, emotion Venus, Bringer of Light. At times the orchestra barely rises above a whisper.

Mercury, the Winged Messenger has a light, jaunty feel, staying on the quiet end while hastening the pace from the subtle Venus. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity is wide-ranging, lead instrument seemingly passed through the orchestra times, never losing its majesty.

I have always loved Saturn, Bringer of Old Age, not because of the concept but the music is complex and superb. That Holst thought it the best part of the suite has no bearing – it simply covers more ground than the other pieces, moving from bombast to subtlety within a few bars of music, with a few swirling, borderline disorienting passages. Hearing it performed, the way the music lurches across the orchestra and different instruments take the spotlight, Saturn could not have been better. Those plucked harp notes gradually build, a bass undercurrent boosting the horns then the strings as it lurches forward.

Go ahead and laugh at Uranus, the Magician. The piece goes from a heavy brass intro into a moody gallop.

When we got to Neptune, the Mystic, the end was near. The piece feels purposely formless, never losing its mystery. With its fabled wordless female chorus, the notes just hung in the air as Neptune soundtracks a trip into unknown territory.

Neptune fades out slowly - the whole piece feels like a fadeout at times. The audience waited till the final bit of music left the air and Caballe-Domenech brought his baton to rest before the rapturous applause began. One century on, Holst’s journey through the Zodiac has lost none of its potency.