Each movement is intended to convey ideas and emotions associated with the Roman deity in question. Holst used Alan Leo's book What is a Horoscope? as a jumping board for his own ideas, as well as for the subtitles (e.g., "Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity") for the movements.
The Houston Symphony production will feature NASA film footage from the Voyager and Hubble expeditions that will play on the screens along with the music. A real live NASA astronaut will be doing a descriptive narration of the relevant planet in between the movements. A colleague from another city whose orchestra had also done the same show remarked to me that THEIR astronaut had seemed to relish saying the name of the second to last planet almost too much. Come on, people, we're not in kindergaten anymore....
If that isn't exciting enough, there is also American composer John Harbison's new Concerto for Bass Viol, which is getting its United States premiere. Now IMHO a bass concerto is almost an even sillier thing than a viola concerto. Both instruments are not designed to project soloistically. Conventional string methods have to be, well, altered. I cannot count how many times I have come across bass players testing out the volume of new instruments by seeing if a lit match positioned at the f-hole opening can be put out with the air whooshing from within. A bass "sectional" involves not bowings and fingerings as it would with other string instruments, but rather going down to the nearest bar and pulling up a stool. Nevertheless, bass players DO take themselves very seriously. Unlike violists, they often, and with enthusiasm, talk shop. I guess when you have to take your instrument with you when you're buying a car, you have to get pretty involved. So I ask Tim to answer the following questions about the concerto for me, while I go off to find a book of matches:
RP: Who is Harbison and how did you come to play this piece?
TP:John Harbison is one of America's preminent composers who won the Pulitzer Prize in Composition. He is currently on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T).A consortium of 15 North American orchestras commissioned the piece. The orchestra in my home city, Greenville, S.C., also joined.
RP:Would you say that the bass is a good solo instrument?
TP:For me, it's the best.
RP: How does a bass concerto compare to a violin concerto?
TP:There really isn't any difference in my opinion. The concerto is a kind of piece written for all instruments that allows the musician to show the wide technical and musical range of the instrument.
RP: What is the biggest shift in the concerto in terms of distance in inches that you have to execute?
TP:Early in the first movement, there is a shift that must cover at least 34 inches in a fraction of a second.
RP: What is your favorite part of the piece and why?
TP:My favorite part is actually the entire last movement. It's jazzy and virtuosic. But I think that the Harbison is, by far, the best concerto in the double bass repertoire.
RP: Why did you pick the bass to play instead of the piano, theremin, flute, violin, or cello?
TP:I started playing the bass at age 10 when most boys are interested in dump trucks and dinosaurs.The bass was equally fascinating to me.
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