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http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by Martin Walker on June 3, 2008, 10:58 am 91.168.6.182 Geoff Diggines writes: "Holst’s over-recorded work with its inclusion of a decidedly parochial patriotic hymn (as though a group of astronauts in deep space suddenly start flying the flag and standing up – anamorphically - for Queen and Nation)". Oh, come off it. The fitting of tune to words was done about 6 years later, so that the imputation of intent is gratuitous. The term anamorphic refers either to rock formation or a form of image distortion; I can't quite see its significance in the quoted sentence.

Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by chris howell on June 3, 2008, 7:15 pm, in reply to "http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm" 213.215.159.49 rather like Beethoven bolstering up his (over-recorded?) 9th Symphony with the European Anthem ... Chris Howell

Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by Geoff Diggines on May 18, 2012, 8:44 pm, in reply to "http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm" Mr Walker has totally misread my comment on Holst's Planets. I am perfectly aware that the patriotic words were added later and not Holst's intention. But I did not claim this. Mr Walter is rather adding his own interpretation of my text. My point, which Walker totally misses, is that regardless of the composers intention the big tune in 'Jupiter' lends itself to such uses/abuses. I can't understand why a composer of usually such musical perception added such a pompous tune!As I suggested,now with additions, we are in deep space, with astronauts, and we are suddenly relocated into some parochial English public school image replete with playing fields,church spires, pastoral and quaint scenes of how some like to imagine England; privileged boys in top hats etc. And it really takes a radical lack of imagination to miss the meaning of 'anamorphic' in this context!Would not this astronaut scenario always already be set in an anamorphic spatio-temporal state with a recast of gravity formation. And would not the transformation to a mythical patriotic 'English rural scene, through Holst's smug tune, constitute a profond anamorphosis??

Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by Martin Walker on May 19, 2012, 3:07 pm, in reply to "Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm" 82.249.3.157 An awfully imaginative, if rather belated response. If I were a psychoanalyst, the term "Eton complex" might come to mind. Different strokes, as the opening bat for Harrow pointed out..

Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by Nick Barnard on May 19, 2012, 10:12 pm, in reply to "Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm" 2.24.220.192 since when were the Planets about space?! Mr Walker's descriptions/associations with 'the pompous tune' are of his own making - don't forget it is actually an extension from the germinal motif that opens this movement - much more sophisticated and subtle than his dismissive statements would suggest

Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by Martin Walker on May 21, 2012, 8:55 pm, in reply to "Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm" 83.158.70.154 "Mr Walker's descriptions/associations with 'the pompous tune' are of his own making" (Nick Barnard) - huh? I was the one criticising all that tendentious stuff! Can't anybody read?

Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by chris howell on May 20, 2012, 11:46 am, in reply to "Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm" 95.224.218.33 A little historical perspective, please! This reminds me of the Italian critic who dismissed "The Planets" as "second-hand film music" - a little checking on dates would have shown him that, actually, an awful lot of film music is second-hand Planets. The sort of hymn tunes that might have rolled through the playing-fields and church spires of parochial public schools in 1916 would still have been of the Barnby-Stainer variety, with their gently undulating melodies and perfumed chromaticisms. The new, bold style of hymn tune advocated by Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw through "Songs of Praise", and that might be typified by RVW's own "For all the Saints" and Shaw's "Marching", and, indeed, by "I vow to thee my country", were coming in, but it would have been a with-it parish (or public school) that resounded to them in 1916. So Holst wasn't evoking any such thing. As for pomposity, this is subjective and one man's pomp may be another man's grandeur. Two years on I forget which recording actually set this argument off, but I've never found anything but open-hearted joy in Boult's recordings at least as far as the 1966 one (I don't know the last). Strangely, the sanctimonious interpretations usually come from non-Brit conductors. Chris Howell

Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm Posted by Nick Barnard on May 21, 2012, 10:46 pm, in reply to "Re: http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/lpo2505.htm" 2.24.210.216 Many apologies to Mr Walker - in haste to refute the 'pompous' epithet I transferred Mr Diggines' quote to him. As they say in all the best exams; read the question carefully!

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