What planet was Holst on?
QUESTION Why didn’t composer Gustav Holst include Earth in his Planets Suite? HoLST didn’t regard Earth as a planet and never planned to include it.
His Planets Suite originated in 1913 when he was on holiday in Majorca where he and playwright Clifford Bax (brother of the better-known composer Arnold Bax) joined a small group of artists.
unlike many composers, Holst had a lively personality and was encouraged by Clifford to take up astrology. Holst was adamant about the difference between astrology and astronomy and promised Clifford that he would write for him a work reflecting his personality.
Clifford suggested the theme of contrasting the seven planets and Holst readily agreed. In his opinion, each planet had its own ‘ personality’, its astrological character. He dismissed Earth as ‘ the centre of al l , yet infinitely inert astrologically’.
In 1914, he produced the first part of The Planets which went on to consist of Mars, The Bringer of War, Venus, The Bringer of Peace, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, uranus and Neptune.
All were written for piano — except the last: Holst thought that only the power of a pipe organ could represent the depths of Neptune.
The pieces were not written together but intermittently from 1914 to 1918, being finished shortly before the end of World War I.
The first orchestral performance (to an invited audience of 250) was conducted at the request of the composer by Sir Adrian Boult. The first public performance was in 1920 by the London Symphony orchestra at the Queen’s Hall (destroyed in the Blitz and sorely missed by professional musicians), directed by the russian-born son of British parents, Albert Coates.
Pluto was discovered in 1930. By then, Holst was tired of the work, considering it lesser than his others and feeling that its universal acclaim overshadowed his major compositions. He refused to write an additional item.
Holst claimed russian ancestry and was greatly influenced by the music of rimskyKorsakov, Glazunov and, later, Stravinsky, and his work reflects this.
He stated that each movement in the Planets conveys an emotion associated with the influence of that planet on the personality. Thus, the mood of each piece reflected the perceived character of the planet, that of Jupiter being the best- known with its later addition of the ‘I Vow To Thee My Country’ lyric.
A piece for Pluto was finally written by Colin Matthews, an expert on Holst’s work, who dedicated it to the late Imogen Holst, Gustav’s daughter. Marrion Wells, Arion Presentations, Hastings, East Sussex
QUESTION Who first wrote: ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’? IN 1697, a young protégé of John Dryden, William Congreve ( born i n 1670 in Bardsey, near Leeds), wrote a tragedy called The Mourning Bride, a quote from Act 3, Scene VIII of which — ‘Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned. Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned’ — became a proverb.
Congreve died in London in 1729, having written four comedies: The old Bachelour (1693), The Double-Dealer (1693), Love For Love (1695) and his masterpiece The Way of The World (1700).
Act 1 Scene I of The Mourning Bride contains the words: ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.’ And in Love For Love, he coined the phrase: ‘o fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell.’ Mervyn Williams, Huddersfield.
QUESTION In the Forties, our maths master showed us a trick algebra equation purporting to prove that 2 = 1. It started with ‘Let a = b’. Does anyone remember this equation? WHEN solving an equation, if you start with an equality and perform the same operation to each side, the equality is preserved. The ‘proof’, with the traditional commentary to distract the student, runs as follows:
Let us start by assuming that: a = b Multiplying both sides by a:
a2 = ab Subtracting b2 from both sides:
a2 - b2 = ab - b2 Factorising both sides:
(a + b)(a - b) = b(a - b) Dividing both sides by (a - b):
(a + b) = b But a = b, so, substituting a for b: a+a=a Divide both sides by a: 2=1 The fallacy is in the division by (a - b). Every division carries the caveat ‘providing the denominator is not zero’. Since a = b, the denominator (a - b) is zero.
There is another, perhaps less well known, ‘proof’ that if a = b, then 4 = 5.
The fallacy in this case is to take the square root of each side and use the positive square root from one side and the negative square root from the other. The ‘proof’ of this is left to the interested reader.
Brian Russell, Chadderton, Greater Manchester.
QUESTION Does anything remain of the Lambeth horse ferry? FurTHEr to the earlier answer, in 1688 Lambeth Ferry was the scene of one of the most dramatic events connected with the expulsion of the Stuarts.
on the night of December 9-10, Mary of Modena (James II’s queen) and the baby prince (afterwards known as the old Pretender), with two nurses, left Whitehall under the guidance of the Count De Lauzun and the writer St Victor and drove to the Horseferry.
‘The night was wet and stormy, and so dark,’ writes St Victor, in his Narrative of The Escape of The Queen of England, ‘that when we got into the boat we could not see each other, though we were closely seated, for the boat was very small.’
Thus, literally ‘with only one frail plank between her and eternity’ did the Queen cross the swollen waters, her six-monthold in her arms. St Victor adds that the journey ‘was rendered very difficult and dangerous by the violence of the wind and the heavy and incessant rain. When we reached the opposite side of the Thames… the coach was still at the inn.’
The party eventually arrived at Gravesend and set sail, reaching Calais without further disaster and never set eyes on the shores of England again.
Mr A. E. Barnes, London SE11.