Program Notes: Holst The Planets, An HD Odyssey

BILLY CHILDS
Diaspora (Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra)
BORN:  March 8, 1957, Los Angeles, California 
WORK COMPOSED: 2022 
WORLD PREMIERE: February 10, 2023, with the Kansas City Symphony conducted by Ruth Reinhardt and featuring saxophonist Steven Banks. 

What to listen for: 

• In the final movement, a duet moment between the saxophone soloist and pianist recalls the musical traditions of a Sunday church service. 

In the final movement, a duet moment between the saxophone soloist and pianist recalls the musical traditions of a Sunday church service. 

Mention the saxophone and we might think of jazz and pop, but the instrument long ago found a place in classical music, where its unique sound added spice to the orchestra. In fact, in the mid-1800s, its inventor — Adolph Sax — intended it to be part of the traditional brass section. Sadly, it lacked the natural blend required to be a permanent member of the band. 

The saxophone survived, however, making appearances in works such as Bizet’s L'Arlésienne, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Gershwin’s An American in Paris, to name just a few. Fast forward to today, and more composers are featuring the sax as a solo instrument in concertos — a forum for its versatility and dynamic range. 

One musician born to write for the instrument is Billy Childs, who, in 2022, responded to a commission by a consortium of 10 American orchestras with a roughly 20-minute piece for saxophone and orchestra called Diaspora. “It’s a symphonic poem which strives to chronicle the forced black American diaspora, as sifted through the prism of my own experience as a Black man in America,” Childs writes about the work.  

Childs is just as comfortable in jazz as classical. He has arranged music for such luminaries as Sting, Yo-Yo Ma and Michael Bublé, and among his influences are Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Emerson. He’s received 16 Grammy nominations and five awards, and in 2015, was recognized for his achievements by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

Childs wrote Diaspora in collaboration with the saxophone virtuoso Steven Banks, and the two worked out a scheme based on the “elegantly succinct and fluent structure” of Barber’s Symphony No. 1, which ties varied thematic ideas into a seamless, organic whole. The two musicians settled on three works by black poets — And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, Africa’s Lament by Nayyirah Waheed and If We Must Die by Claude McKay — that served as guideposts for the music.  

The work is broken up into three movements, beginning on a positive note with Motherland, played on solo soprano saxophone later joined by an uplifting scherzo accompaniment from the orchestra. Childs writes that this is meant to evoke a feeling of well-being and security from Africans living in the motherland: “I want to depict a sense of purity — a purity arising from having been thus far unobstructed by the outside destructive forces that would later determine our fate.” 

Childs describes a pattern in the strings that introduces the tension, signaling trouble on the horizon. As the harmonies become more ominous, the saxophone delivers an urgent tone in short melodic fragments. A battle between the slave traders and the future slaves ensues, ending in a brass fanfare. The saxophone plays a lament as slaves board a ship, and a cadenza represents a moment of painful reflection by the innocent.  

According to Childs, in the second movement, If We Must Die, a loud blast by the orchestra symbolizes the slave ship. The saxophone introduces a rapid 12-tone theme that reappears as those captured journey across the ocean to America. Sweeping scales in the strings, woodwinds and harp suggest the movement of waves before a jarring dissonance announces their arrival. A violent exchange between percussion and saxophone represents the confusion, rage and terror of the slave trade, where families are ripped apart. This leads to music of despair, meant to outline the psychological depression of the slaves, before vibraphone and celesta introduce a forceful rhythm that grows in intensity, suggesting centuries of resistance, anger and rebellion. Countering this, the saxophone plays a tender melody symbolic of the hope and resilience of black Americans, “of their love, sense of worth and determination.”  

The third and final movement, And Still I Rise, is about black empowerment and the role of the church in the community. The music opens with a hymn-like passage, a variation of the folk melody that begins the concerto. This plaintive music pairs saxophone and piano, mimicking a singer at a Sunday service, and soon a lush orchestral accompaniment seems to wash away all grief. A march-like rhythm follows, suggesting the slaves’ will to rise and overcome their obstacles, and the work concludes in a victorious fanfare. 

GUSTAV HOLST 
The Planets, Op. 32 
BORN: September 21, 1874, in Cheltenham, UK 
DIED: May 25, 1934, in London 
WORK COMPOSED: 1914–1917 
WORLD PREMIERE: September 29, 1918, in Queen’s Hall, London.

What to listen for:  

• This kaleidoscopic traversal through the solar system ends with the hushed women’s chorus in Neptune, and listeners will be challenged to know when this ethereal music finally gives in to silence. 

This kaleidoscopic traversal through the solar system ends with the hushed women’s chorus in Neptune, and listeners will be challenged to know when this ethereal music finally gives in to silence. 

Orchestras around the world seldom go wrong in presenting The Planets, Gustav Holst’s ever-popular suite that takes listeners on a cosmic, albeit abstract, tour of the solar system. The Seattle Symphony has visited this brilliantly inventive score frequently since first performing it in 1988.  

Although the music stands on its own as impressionistic, recent audiences have been treated to videos projected above the stage, sometimes using NASA and computer-generated imagery. It might seem to be overtly programmatic treatment for a suite inspired more by astrology than astronomy, but the mosaic seems to delight audiences and brings them to the concert hall. Hopefully, Holst would have approved. 

He began crafting the suite — originally titled Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra — in 1913 after a friend introduced him to astrological mysticism. Following its premiere in 1918, people began to associate the music with the horrors of the First World War, especially its tumultuous opening movement, Mars. Soon, The Planets was played everywhere, much to the consternation of Holst, who felt its popularity overshadowed, and even diminished, his lesser-known works. To his surprise and dismay, he became a famous man. 

The Planets is a suite of miniature, often turbulent tone poems of varying moods, each in direct contrast to the next. Holst, who died in 1934, wanted an emotional experience rather than a postcard tour, and he fleshed out his score with an ear for drama, the compact themes creating a palpable sense of tension and release. Some might compare it to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition or Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and its biting orchestral coloring even reminds us of Stravinsky’s The Firebird. 

The first performance, under conductor Adrian Boult at Queen’s Hall in London, was a hasty affair. The musicians reviewed the sheet music for the first time just hours before the concert, and singers from St. Paul’s Girls School had barely rehearsed their part for the closing Neptune. For a second performance, Boult performed only five of the seven movements, saying a “half hour was as much as the audience could take” of such a modern-sounding score. 

Today, The Planets is an undisputed masterpiece and as you will see in this particular set of concerts, a visual delight as well. Here's a summary of each stop in your celestial journey:   

1. Mars, the Bringer of War — The first section to be composed, in 1914, opens with a menacing ostinato in 5/4 time that quickly turns into a brassy, barbaric cascade of rhythm designed to unsettle listeners from the get-go.  

2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace — Relaxed and ethereal, this portrayal of the eponymous goddess offers a bit of relief from the turmoil that came before, featuring a luminous blend of strings and harp. 

3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger — The last section to be completed, this scherzo exchanges quicksilver themes in a delicate dance that ends almost as soon as it begins.  

4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity — The Jovian celebration is the most extroverted of the bunch, with a contrasting middle section. The melody was used in the hymn “I vow to thee, my country.’’ 

5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age — The longest stretch in the suite, it begins as a solemn march, first grim, then peaceful, with tolling bells suggesting a release from life.  

6. Uranus, the Magician — Four notes from the brass introduce the next chapter, the music transformed into a macabre march that seems to represent spent souls. 

7. Neptune, the Mystic — A melismatic women's chorus sings a wordless hymn that evaporates into silence, which listeners can visualize as eternity or the celestial void beyond our solar system. The suite’s coda is entirely in pianissimo. 

Mars, the Bringer of War — The first section to be composed, in 1914, opens with a menacing ostinato in 5/4 time that quickly turns into a brassy, barbaric cascade of rhythm designed to unsettle listeners from the get-go.  

Venus, the Bringer of Peace — Relaxed and ethereal, this portrayal of the eponymous goddess offers a bit of relief from the turmoil that came before, featuring a luminous blend of strings and harp. 

Mercury, the Winged Messenger — The last section to be completed, this scherzo exchanges quicksilver themes in a delicate dance that ends almost as soon as it begins.  

Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity — The Jovian celebration is the most extroverted of the bunch, with a contrasting middle section. The melody was used in the hymn “I vow to thee, my country.’’ 

Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age — The longest stretch in the suite, it begins as a solemn march, first grim, then peaceful, with tolling bells suggesting a release from life.  

Uranus, the Magician — Four notes from the brass introduce the next chapter, the music transformed into a macabre march that seems to represent spent souls. 

Neptune, the Mystic — A melismatic women's chorus sings a wordless hymn that evaporates into silence, which listeners can visualize as eternity or the celestial void beyond our solar system. The suite’s coda is entirely in pianissimo. 

This is Xian Zhang’s first program as the Seattle Symphony’s Music Director Designate, and she’s no stranger to The Planets. After leading the New World Symphony in the work last fall, the South Florida Classical Review called it a “top-notch performance” conducted by “a skilled orchestral colorist.” 

Kurt Loft © 2025 

Kurt Loft is a journalist and music critic who has covered classical music for various publications and arts groups for more than 40 years. A member of the Music Critics Association of North America, he lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.