Symphony in Space

[JohnnyB]

Thursday night the wife and I went to our last Seattle Symphony concert for the season. They were featuring one of our favorite orchestral pieces, "The Planets," a 7-movement tone poem with a huge score calling for more of everything plus two harps, every imaginable percussion instrument, pipe organ, plus women's chorus for the last movement (Neptune).

They put some thought into the program. The first half was two pieces featured in 2001; A Space Odyssey. They started with Ligeti's "Atmospheres," which was the spacey-sounding music that accompanied Dave Bowman's trip through the worm hole toward the end. As spacey as this music sounds, it's all done acoustically with conventional orchestral instruments, though sometimes played in unconventional ways. It was quite a trip to sit there, hearing all these weird effects, while at the same time seeing that it's a conductor counting out the beats and conducting 85 musicians concentrating on playing a score. The results were fabulous. In fact, the next day I played the piece on my 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack album, and it had nowhere near the impact of the live experience. Plus, we were sitting just 9 rows from the stage--maybe 35 ft.

They segued immediately into Richard Strauss' "Also Spracht Zarathustra," whose intro is the iconic theme of the 2001 film. Instead of playing just the 1-1/2 min. intro, they played the entire 9-movement tone poem. Again, wonderfulness.

The best was yet to come. The second half was Holst's "The Planets" with a twist. The stage was darkened and the musicians played from lamplit music stands. Hanging above the darkened stage was a large screen. While the orch. played The Planets, (Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), NASA images gathered from the Mars Rover and Voyager deep space probe were projected onto the screen. These were mostly in color and up close. The Mars section featured on-the-ground shots. Other space probes had shots approaching various moons of the gas giants as well as closeups of the rings of Saturn and Uranus. Plus, our new music director (Ludovic Morlot), who apprenticed under James Levine at Boston Symphony, is just fabulous, especially with these large scale productions. The end result was a spontaneous and enthusiastic standing O.

[BlueRedWhite]

You are lucky to have such productions. I always thought that the Planets symphony was by Sibelius. Never too late to rectify.

I hope to see that production around here some day .

[specialk]

What a great show. Thanks for the details!

[a.bandini]

That sounds pretty cool, and well worth the standing O.*

*Unsolicited, and possibly unwelcomed thread hijack: Had a professor I greatly respected tell us one day "Save the compliment of a Standing Ovation for only the very best performances. It is the ultimate compliment you can give performing artists, so don't cheapen it by giving it away for merely good performances. Sit in your chair and clap enthusiastically for good art, but only stand when you've had an experience that filled you with awe and wonder." He went on for quite a while, but since he was an impressive guy I've tried to do what he said, and have gotten a lot of strange looks at times when everyone else around me was standing and clapping. Sigh. Pretty old school. (performances by my kids at school, obviously, made me violate this overall guidance). Regardless, his advice didn't seem to align well with rock culture, but it sure sounds like it fit perfectly with what you saw.

[Willie G. Moseley]

The Planets is something that, IMO, usually needs to be as orchestrated as possible; i.e., I found Tomita's electronic version to be a bit unsatisfying.

Methinks the soundtrack to 2001 was the progenitor of the a viable collaboration between space imagery and "strong" symphonic works, and then there was, of course, the inevitable viable collaboration between symphonic works and rock bands, as pioneered by the Vanilla Fudge.

In fact, the way I became aware of The Planets to begin with had a connection to both a space movie and a rock band. This happened in the mid-'80s---I'd always been a fan of The Right Stuff (book and movie), and was fascinated with that film's rousing soundtrack, most of which was composed by Bill Conti of Rocky fame. An exception was the exciting music when John Glenn was launched---there were three booming notes (which might have been C, G and F#), followed by a fanfare, then a chugging, insistent string, uh, riff that picked up its tempo as the Mercury-Atlas picked up speed, culminating in eerie, light strings as Glenn achieved orbit.

But I'd never really checked the movie credits, and the soundtrack would not be forthcoming for a few years (and the Glenn launch music sequence would not be included, per se---details momentarily).

About four years after the movie was released, the Missus bought me the Emerson, Lake & Powell album, which included their cover of "Mars, the Bringer of War"...and all of a sudden I froze when I heard those three booming notes again. A quick perusal of the The Planets (I went out and purchased the version by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic) and the movie credits averred that the Glenn sequence was a melange of "Mars, the Bringer of War", "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" and "Neptune, the Mystic", and it fit the video imagery perfectly.

The soundtrack to The Right Stuff would be released the same year as Emerson, Lake & Powell ('86) but while there's a passage that soncially references the Glenn launch, it's obviously not the same stuff that was heard in movie theatres. Musta been some kinds usage rights controversy that eliminated the Holst stuff from the soundtrack CD. Pity.

The Planets would end up on a list in a column I wrote titled "Classical Music for Rockers", for good reason. I bet I would have enjoyed the Seattle concert, on accounta those video images probably fit the music as well.

(Tangent: I"m about to put another space-oriented, self-serving announcement up on the O.C.)

[JohnnyB]

Here's a selection of orchestral recordings of The Planets. I haven't listened to them all, but have around 7 of them. My favorites:

• John Eliot Gardiner and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London--Gardiner is the grand-nephew of the man who helped financially underwrite Host's composition. Gardiner shows his understanding of the piece at the DNA level. It's also superbly recorded.
  
• Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
  
• Andre Previn and the Royal Philharmonic (pretty much any of the Previn-led recordings are excellent)
  
• Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Phil. Recorded in the '70s and still in print both on CD and vinyl; that should give you an idea how good it is.
  
• Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra
  
• Sir George Solti and Chicago Symphony
  

Willie, if your only orchestral recording of this is under Bernstein, get one of these, preferably the Gardiner. But you're right; if you want to get a grasp of The Planets, you really need the orchestral version, and if you have a chance to hear it live, do it!

Did Vanilla Fudge pioneer orchestral rock? I always thought that distinction went to Deep Purple with their 1969 recording of Concerto for Group and Orchestra with the Royal Phil conducted by Malcolm Arnold at Albert Hall, quickly followed by Five Bridges by The Nice (w/Keith Emerson on keys).

a.bandini: I agree with what your prof said about standing ovations. Fortunately the Seattle Symphony audience doesn't have the "everybody gets a trophy" mentality. Generally I find them to be a pretty aware group with a high standard for excellence. There are standing O's and then there are standing o's. The most genuine ones are immediate eruptions, where nearly everybody stands up and claps, yelling wildly as soon as the conductor puts down the baton. I saw that happen twice this season, once after Roberto Abbado conducted Moussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," and when our new conductor did Ravel's La Valse. I've seen others where there's a trickle-up effect, a few stand up and a few more and on. The one Thursday wasn't quite the spontaneous explosion of the Abbado performance, but it was close. I was one of the first to stand up and start yelling, but easily 3/4 of the crowd was on their feet within 10 seconds. It was an excellent performance, and the very tricky challenge of coordinating the female voices in a balcony at the back of the auditorium with the orchestra on the stage for the final movement was handled particularly well.

[Willie G. Moseley]

Semantics: My post RE the Fudge noted "collaboration between symphonic works and rock bands, as pioneered by the Vanilla Fudge", which meant I was referring to things like them interpolating Beethoven snippets on the first album (w/ "Eleanor Rigby") in 1967, and performing a kick-ass version of "Fur Elise" and "Moonlight Sonata" on The Beat Goes On ('68).

That's different from newly-composed orchestral efforts between symphonies and combos, and as for that category I think you're right about the Purps' album. Curious that my favorite part of the Five Bridges album is a, er, cover song, a la the Fudge (Intermezzo from the "Karelia Suite" by Sibelius).

Dunno about the Purps' inspiration, but members of numerous other bands like the Yes and Uriah Heep have noted being influenced by the Fudge.

I also have the Dutoit/Montreal Symphony version of The Planets. I like than one better than the NY Philharmonic version, primarily due to the clarity of the recording.

[Ted]

Sounds like a wonderful night indeed JohnnyB!!!

[JohnnyB]

I also have the Dutoit/Montreal Symphony version of The Planets. I like than one better than the NY Philharmonic version, primarily due to the clarity of the recording.

For classical CD sonics, my favorite label categorically is London Digital. And throughout the '90s, Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orch. were absolutely on a roll. It makes for a compelling combination. By contrast, personally I find some of Bernstein's tempos erratic.

[zenmindbeginner]

My favorite version is Herbert Von Karajan's version with the Berlin Philharmonic In Deutsche Grammaphone.

EPIC.