The Southwest Voice

larger view

At the Symphony . . . Symphonic Tour of Our Solar System

How often do you get the chance to hear great orchestral music performed live and simultaneously view interstellar photos of what the music portrays?  When did you last experience the union of ancient Greek mythology with 21st-century technology?

On March 8 the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra will provide you with both opportunities when it performs The Planets by Gustav Holst.  Accompanying the music will be a series of stunning photos of the planets taken by NASA space probes that will bring Holst’s musical portraits to life.

The Planets is a series of seven orchestral tone poems, each ranging from four to eight minutes in length and named after the seven solar planets known in 1914, excluding earth.  The music of each movement captures the essence of its planet’s name.

The Planets opens with the warlike “Mars, The Bringer of War.” Its hammering ostinato served as a model for film composers such as John Williams and Hans Zimmer.  Brilliant photos of the “Red Planet” seem the perfect visual supplement.

A poised and serene “Venus, The Bringer of Peace”, follows the bellicose “Mars”.  Its classical beauty is made apparent in smoothly undulating harmonies.

“Mercury, The Winged Messenger” brings a fleeting scherzo movement of rapidly fluttering patterns of sound that lie gently on the ear.

The  jovial “Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity” is renowned for its colorful brass and wind passages, scintillating percussion and broadly sweeping melodies.

“Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age” seems to come to us from deep space with its mysteriously distant and deliberate pacing. Its gradual crescendo slowly approaches and swells to a clashing climax before tranquilly disappearing in the distance.

“Uranus, The Magician” is a riot of quirky rhythms and instrumental combinations that never indicates what will happen next.

Finally we have “Neptune, The Mystic.”  Rippling wisps of sound create a shimmering sonorous glow, topped off by an unseen chorus of women’s voices whose wordless chord patterns seductively entice us to follow them to a distant place of peace.

As if onboard a unique spacecraft, the audience will visually follow each planet through the reaches of outer space accompanied by the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra.

Departure time is 8:00 p.m., March 8, at the Rabobank Theatre.