Composer of the Month: Finding Inspiration as a Composer; Holst’s The Planets Suite

When you sit down to write a piece of music where does your inspiration come from? Throughout history there has been discussion on composers’, artists’, writers’ inspiration for particular works – where did they get their ideas from? Who was their muse? What is this song really about?

Now, I am not a composer, but I have read enough interviews with composers and songwriters to know that inspiration can come from pretty much anywhere. A composer might hear a snippet of a melody in their head and later work that up into a piece of music. They may read a book, or a story and want to write something based on that story (or quite literally about that story in the case of opera or ballet), they may be taking a walk and come across a beautiful landscape and find themselves inspired to write music that is inspired by that landscape, or they might take aspects of their life and use that as inspiration. It can come from pretty much anything or anywhere.

As a composer you do not have to take just one form of inspiration. If you read an inspiring line of poetry you don’t have to think, right that’s it I must use this and only this to base my work on. In reality many composers will use several sources of inspiration for their work. Maybe they were commissioned to write an opera, say, based on a book. Clearly the book is the inspiration for the opera. But maybe, just before they were asked to write this book they had travelled to a new city, and the sounds and rhythms they heard there of every day life, or the hustle and bustle of people going about their business in that city were stuck in their brain. As that composer is writing their opera, these sounds and rhythms they heard on their last trip come back to them and find their way into the music the composer is writing.

One of the best examples I can think of for a piece with multiple sources of inspiration is one written by our Composer of the Month – The Planets Suite by Gustav Holst.

The Planets Suite

The Planets Suite is a suite, or set, of 7 movements, one piece of music that forms part of a grouping of related pieces of music – a symphony generally has 4 movements, a concerto generally has 3. The Planets was written for orchestra, with a choir joining the orchestra for the final movement. Each of the movements is named after one of the planets of our solar system as known at the time Gustav Holst was writing – see if you or your children can spot the planet in this work that is no longer considered a planet! Each of the movements has a very different musical style, inspired by the name of that movement. Mars, for example, is very different to Venus.

Written between 1914-1916 by British composer Gustav Holst, ‘The Planets’ represents all the known planets of the Solar System seen from Earth at the time, and their corresponding astrological character, including Jupiter and Mars. The different movements of The Planets Suite are:-

• 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
• Neptune, the Mystic

What was the inspiration behind The Planets Suite

You might suppose that Holst was interested in space, and the study of the planets themselves from the fact that he wrote a work called The Planets. In fact the most obvious, and largest, inspiration behind The Planets Suite was his interest in astrology. A few years before he wrote this Suite, Holst had been on holiday with friends including composer Arnold Bax and his brother Clifford. On this holiday there had been a discussion about astrology which sparked Holst’s interest in this area. Holst went on to study astrology further after this holiday. He was interested in how each planet had a different character, and on the influence astrology was said to have on people. After a while he became an accomplished interpreter of horoscopes, and of course got an idea for a piece of music, or set of pieces of music, based on the various characters the planets were said to possess. You will note from the list of the different movements in this suite above that Earth is not one of the planets featured, and this is because astrologically the Earth is not important at all.

This was not his only inspiration, though. Holst was writing The Planets Suite between 1914 and 1917, whilst World War 1 was ongoing. He had tried to enlist in the army, but was unable to do so because of his ill health, but the war had a profound effect on him, as it did on everyone who lived through it. The first movement, Mars, has often been referred to as Holst’s critique on war, on the darkness and violence of war rather than on the idea of glory in battle. This particular movement was written as the world was preparing for a possible outbreak of war, and it is perhaps unsurprising that this would be the first movement written given world events at the time he was composing.

Finally the work of other composers was influential on our Composer of the Month. The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky had been premiered before Holst wrote this work. And if you listen to both this piece and, once again, Mars from The Planets, you will hear similar rhythms and rhythmic patterns. You will hear short, sharp notes and loud, explosive patterns suggesting the battles in war time. Whilst he was perhaps not quoting from, or directly echoing The Rite of Spring in Mars, nevertheless the inspiration of hearing music that uses these rhythms, patterns and ways of using musical instruments is clear for all to hear.

This is just a whistle stop tour of The Planets Suite, discussing some of the main and most obvious influences and inspirations for the work. I would encourage you to have a listen to the suite either for the first time, or for the 500th time, whichever it is for you. And maybe approach it listening out to see if you can spot any other influences you think you can hear in the music. Can you hear echoes of other composers’ music? What characteristics was Holst trying to portray in the different movements do you think? And when you have done that, have a think about a book or poem you like and think about whether you could write a piece of music based on that book or poem, or even comic book. What would your piece of music sound like?

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