David Lloyd Jones Holst Gustav The Planets (2004) [sacd R][of]

In 1992, Manfred Mann's Earth Band in its latest incarnation delivered a new album that retraced a few earlier steps and got closer to finishing some ideas that earlier incarnations of the band had begun. The result was Masque, a strange and beautiful (and strangely beautiful) mix of jazz, rock, classical, and pop sounds, drawing on compositions from Paul Weller to Gustav Holst…

As samplers go, this is one of the best. An excellent cross section of artists from the Stockfish catalog. I am especially taken by the cuts from Alan Taylor ("The Beat Hotel" in particualr) and Chris Jones. Sonics are clean, clear and crisp, with an exceptional sense of timbre. I've purchased a few of the CD's of the artists I've heard on this sampler, and I'm here to tell you, they sound great to - though they can't beat these SACD tracks.

André Previn /LSO - Holst: The Planets
Vinyl Rip in 24-Bit/96-kHz | FLAC tracks | Full Scan Covers | MU, RS | 517 MB 3% recovery
1974 | Genre: Classical | Label: Angel | SS-1-45000 45 RPM | US pressing 1979

Recorded in 1973, this is widely considered one of the great Planets. Previn is outstanding here; he's not going after effects, he's making all the pieces fit together.
Early in 1914, Gustav Holst told a friend: "As a rule I only study things that suggest music to me…Recently the character of each planet suggested lots to me". This marked the beginning of the composition of his biggest orchestral work, a suite of seven movements. The first to be sketched was Mars - prophetically, for the First World War began just as he completed it. The order of the composition of the remainder was Venus and Jupiter in the autumn of 1914, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune during 1915 and Mercury in 1916. The orchestration of the complete work was also finished in 1916.

Holst: The Planets - by Ken Russell (1983)

"Planets" - a documentary film by Ken Russell with the music of composer Gustav Holst in the performance of the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra.
Collage assembled from fragments of films, newsreels and advertisements from around the world and covers a wide period of time. Russell has received special permission from the composer's daughter, where she set a condition not to use pictures that show the atrocities of war. Therefore, we can only imagine what would be the choice of masters for the first theme: Mars.
The film is completely devoid of narration and voice acting, but his musical arrangement, which is based on the plot, the narrative has the same meaning as the video sequence, and, in fact, creates the atmosphere.
This is very unusual, stunning film was undeservedly forgotten. Want to believe that better quality video would be available soon …
In this orchestral suite of 7 pieces. Each planet of the solar system (except Earth and Pluto) is devoted to his own plays, which, in principle, quite distinct (ie it can be executed and obeyed and separately).

Maybe Tomita's most unified and exciting album, "The Planets" was taken out of market for a few years by court order from Gustav Holst's relatives. They claimed that Tomita had manhandled their father's great composition, and the record company withdrew some 30,000 records from the stores.

Among the many recorded versions of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring that appeared around the work's centennial year, several were of piano transcriptions, in most cases Stravinsky's own four-hand piano arrangement. The 5 Browns' live recording presents a five-pianos version by Jeffrey Shumway that shows the family of virtuoso pianists in various combinations, from the single note at the opening to all ten hands by the ballet's clangorous end. The group deserves kudos for performing this tour de force without scores, and for making it work without a conductor.