Music of the Spheres - ‘Houstoun, we have a problem’

The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra will close its 2007 APN News & Media Premier Series with the largest orchestra of the year with a stage-groaning 93 players performing The Planets by Gustav Holst at the Auckland Town Hall on Thursday 18 October. 

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES – APN News & Media Premier Series, Finale

Thursday18 October, 8pm, Auckland Town Hall, THE EDGE



HAPPY HOUR – Wednesday 17 October, 6.30pm, Auckland Town Hall, THE EDG, FREE ENTRY



The Music of the Spheres concert will be the first time The Planets has been performed in its entirety in Auckland for 15 years and it is a much anticipated event on the classical music calendar. The concert will be conducted by US-based conductor, Mischa Santora.



The Planets is considered a masterpiece of orchestral writing and is the most performed composition by an English composer. The work, written in 1916, takes listeners on an astrological journey through seven movements: Mars, the Bringer of War; Venus, the Bringer of Peace; Mercury, the Winged Messenger; Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity; Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age; Uranus, the Magician; and Neptune, the Mystic.



The large orchestra size is due to Holst’s use of multiples of instruments such as three oboes, three bassoons, two piccolos, two harps, bass oboe, two timpani players, glockenspiel, celesta, xylophone, tubular bells and organ.



“The Planets is one of the best-loved works in the classical repertoire and this concert promises to provide a big finish – quite literally – to the 2007 APN News & Media Premier Series,” says APO Chief Executive, Barbara Glaser. “The 2007 series has provided audiences with some magical musical moments this year including virtuosic displays by pianist John Chen and violinist Feng Ning, spine-tingling performances of Shostakovich and DvoÃ…â„¢ák symphonies, a rapturous response to Marcus Groh’s performances of Liszt and the recent crowd-pleasing staging of Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Teddy Tahu Rhodes. The APO and APN look forward to bringing more magic to the stage at this concert and the 2008 series.”



The Music of the Spheres concert will also feature pianist Michael Houstoun to provide extra lift-off. Houstoun will perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D flat Op. 10 and the concert will open with Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem.



The concert on Thursday 18 October will be preceded by the APO’s final free Happy Hour concert for 2007 on Wednesday 17 October at 6.30pm in the Auckland Town Hall. Happy Hour is an informal, narrated one-hour concert that provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the orchestra works with the conductor to prepare for the following night’s performance. This concert will include excerpts from the Prokofiev concerto and The Planets. Two cocktails, created by THE EDGE, will be available for sale at Happy Hour: the Mars-tini and the Jupiter Julep.



Tickets for Music of the Spheres (from $12 to $110 plus booking fee) are available from Ticketek Ph 09 307 5139, www.ticketek.co.nz .



Happy Hour bookings available at www.aucklandphil.co.nz . Happy Hour concerts are free to attend but bookings are required.




The Planets – Gustav Holst (1874-1934)



The concept of the work is astrological rather than astronomical (which is why Earth is not included). Each movement is intended to convey ideas and emotions associated with the human psyche, not the Roman deities.


· Neptune was the first piece of music to have a fade-out ending. Although commonplace today, the effect bewitched audiences in the era before widespread recorded sound. Neptune’s ethereal sound has subsequently inspired numerous sci-fi film scores.



· Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before Holst’s death. Holst expressed no interest in writing a movement for it. By that time, he had become disillusioned by the popularity of the suite, believing that it detracted from his other works. Numerous other composers have written their own Pluto movements. In 2000, the Hallé Orchestra commissioned composer Colin Matthews, a Holst specialist, to write a new eighth movement, which Matthews entitled ‘Pluto, the Renewer’. (Pluto has since been “de-planetised”.)



· The melody of the slow middle section of Jupiter was arranged to form the hymn tune Thaxted (named after the village where Holst lived for many years). Holst adapted the work in 1921 to fit the metre of a poem beginning “I vow to thee, my country” that was written between 1908 and 1918 by Cecil Spring-Rice. The lyrics in their final version were a response to the human cost of World War I. The hymn was first performed in 1925 and quickly became a patriotic anthem, although Holst had no such intentions when he originally composed the music. Another adaptation would be the tune used for the hymn “O God beyond all praising”.



· Those who attended the APO’s recent Led Zeppelin Project concert may recognise parts of the Mars movement: Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page played a section of Mars in Dazed and Confused recorded in 1973 at Madison Square Garden, and released in 1976 on The Song Remains the Same film and soundtrack.