Holst-Planets, The vol. 2: Mars-Uranus arr. Weatherson (SP)-B/2V/C/2X/3M/5T

This Scott Weatherson arrangement of The Planets Volume 2 by Gustav Holst is for percussion ensemble featuring the movements Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus. Gustav Holst's monumental orchestral suite 'The Planets' (1914-1916) is a dense palette of swirling colours. Each movement is a miniature tone poem characterizing the astrological nature of all the planets in the Solar System, except for Earth. Interestingly, the work was originally written for 2 pianos – the percussive nature of piano writing transfers easily to percussion instruments themselves. However it is from the orchestral score that this arrangement draws its inspiration.

This arrangement, spread across two volumes, features the movements Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus. I have tried to capture the way Holst moves the instrumental colours throughout the full orchestra in order to create a 'percussion orchestra'. Some suggestions for mallet choice are given, such as using the shafts of the sticks at the beginning of Mars to mimic the 'col legno' sound of the strings, or a different mallet choice for glockenspiel in Mercury to create a sound more like the celesta, but generally the choices are left up to the players.

The arrangement is scored for 10 players and requires an instrumentation of 2 glockenspiels, 2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones, 3 marimbas (including one 5 octave instrument), chimes, a crotale in E, and 5 timpani. All of the parts use only 2 mallet playing and some shifting between instruments is required; the chimes should be placed next to one of the xylophones and the single crotale is played by the timpanist. The timpani part is an amalgamation of the original 2 orchestral parts, condensed and in some places altered to enable it to fit onto 5 timpani, as well as extra entrances added to suit the ensemble writing.

Number of players: 10
Difficulty: Intermediate