Houston Symphony gives the solar system its own soundtrack
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If Venus were a melody, it would not be a lyrical flute line followed by violin and cello solos. Gustav Holst got it wrong when he composed his famous suite, The Planets.
With the help of filmmaker Duncan Copp and state-of-the-art space images, the Houston Symphony has created The Planets — An HD Odyssey. The production is a musical and visual performance piece that features a high-definition movie of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and the other movements of Holst's suite.
The new movie debuts Thursday in Jones Hall in a live Houston Symphony concert of the work. Performances continue next weekend before the orchestra takes its new production to Florida and New York City's Carnegie Hall.
When Holst wrote the piece in 1914, he was not describing the planets musically, but the gods of their names. Mars he called “the Bringer of War” and Venus, “the Bringer of Peace,” for example.
The new movie offers a visual correction to Holst's astrological ideas of space.
The idea came about after a performance of Holst in 2003 that was accompanied by old planet images, Graf said. Some astronauts on stage for the show were less than impressed with the visual part of the performance, Graf said.
The symphony hired Copp to help.
The filmmaker, whose doctoral work examined the volcanic and geologic processes of Venus, pieced together the state-of-the-art images into a high-definition movie coordinated with Holst's music.
The digital images come from NASA spacecraft. They are mostly in the public domain, Copp said, though most have never been seen by the public.
In Copp's movie, the graphics of Saturn are molded to give the viewer the sense of tilting of the planet's rings with the movement of the spacecraft.
“It is like a dance of celestial spheres,” he said. “It is really beautiful to watch.”
With the help of filmmaker Duncan Copp and state-of-the-art space images, the Houston Symphony has created The Planets — An HD Odyssey. The production is a musical and visual performance piece that features a high-definition movie of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and the other movements of Holst's suite.
The new movie debuts Thursday in Jones Hall in a live Houston Symphony concert of the work. Performances continue next weekend before the orchestra takes its new production to Florida and New York City's Carnegie Hall.
When Holst wrote the piece in 1914, he was not describing the planets musically, but the gods of their names. Mars he called “the Bringer of War” and Venus, “the Bringer of Peace,” for example.
The new movie offers a visual correction to Holst's astrological ideas of space.
The idea came about after a performance of Holst in 2003 that was accompanied by old planet images, Graf said. Some astronauts on stage for the show were less than impressed with the visual part of the performance, Graf said.
The symphony hired Copp to help.
The filmmaker, whose doctoral work examined the volcanic and geologic processes of Venus, pieced together the state-of-the-art images into a high-definition movie coordinated with Holst's music.
The digital images come from NASA spacecraft. They are mostly in the public domain, Copp said, though most have never been seen by the public.
In Copp's movie, the graphics of Saturn are molded to give the viewer the sense of tilting of the planet's rings with the movement of the spacecraft.
“It is like a dance of celestial spheres,” he said. “It is really beautiful to watch.”
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- Classical Music
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- Classical, Classical Music
