Gustav Holst - The Planets. Jupiter full orchestral score highlighted and functionally analyzed.

I recently did a deep dive into the full score of Jupiter by Holst. His orchestral techniques are numerous and extremely effective. There is so much to learn from his work on the Planets and the grandeur of Jupiter is no exception!

This piece is a soaring, flourishing, majestic work. He will establish motifs then repeat them with variations and segmentation to prevent fatigue and keep ideas fresh. He quickly builds patterns and provides variations to provide more forward motion and listener interest.

His orchestration is tight and leaves nothing to waste. I’d say it’s an economy of orchestration that’s very admirable. He will often leave space before big hits to allow them to have more impact. He will free up clutter around given instruments to help them cut through and shuffle around between instruments nimbly with dove tailing.

The polyrhythms may be my favorite aspect of this piece. The stacked 3 note patterns create a 24 note pattern over three bars that obscures the meter and beautifully flourishes on simple melodic patterns typically using winds and strings for their soaring quality. These obstinate are offset from one other commonly with two patterns in multiple instruments and both players stacking for fullness.

The runs are not precisely on beat, often offset from downbeats and use tuplets to add an unsettled forward motion. Brief tensions are regularly employed with delayed resolutions and sus chords.

The general colors here highlight functional parts of the score with blue highlighting melodic ideas, yellow showing countermelodies and bright melodic content, green showing rhythms, purple for flourishes and energetic builds, orange for harmony, and brown for bass notes.

These colors help guide how the colors are created for each part of this lengthy score to give clarity to how they can be achieved. They also quickly show the functional parts spread across instruments in a very clear manner for referencing and employing these orchestration ideas in your own compositions in the future.

I hope this is insightful to whoever watches this. Analyzing works in this way brings clarity to the inner workings of a score and increases my appreciation for the skill of the old masters.

I highly recommend you go download the Planets scores and so you can learn from Holst and expand your orchestral palette :)

Note, on the first page I remarked that it starts with 3 horns, but it's 3 horn staves with 6 horns playing. The a2 means both players are playing.

https://www.free-scores.com/PDF_EN/ho...