MARS
"Mars: The Bringer of War" is the first movement in The Planets. Leo in The Art
of Synthesis
calls Mars the ‘energizer’, ‘the wrath of God’, ‘that which is necessary to
cause motion and activity’.
Begun in May 1914, Mars has been seen to offer a presentiment of World War I, but Holst made no such claim himself although he called Mars “The Bringer of War.” In his cycle, Mars would seem to describe raw Martian impulses: the chaotic energy of youth, the misuse of the will, the desire for revolutionary action. The forces for change are overwhelming. The insistent, irregular 5/4 time and the tri-tonal harmonic basis instill energy, motion and activity and a great sense of impending elemental change. The huge orchestra is harnessed to this goal from the col legno strings and innovative 40- bar tam-tam crescendo at the beginning, to the summons by the horns at bar 45 to draw the ‘Destroying angel’ into a dance of death. Calls to action from lead to the underground, plutonic aspects of Mars the terrorist, which finally and terrifyingly erupt, uniting the orchestra at bar 110 into a kind of Dominant statement of the opening idea. By the last few bars the unleashed destructive powers have shattered any conception of tonic and dominant- revolutionary change has taken place. We have all been changed. And the most abrasive, hard-edged piece of modern music had been written in Britain in 1914.
Begun in May 1914, Mars has been seen to offer a presentiment of World War I, but Holst made no such claim himself although he called Mars “The Bringer of War.” In his cycle, Mars would seem to describe raw Martian impulses: the chaotic energy of youth, the misuse of the will, the desire for revolutionary action. The forces for change are overwhelming. The insistent, irregular 5/4 time and the tri-tonal harmonic basis instill energy, motion and activity and a great sense of impending elemental change. The huge orchestra is harnessed to this goal from the col legno strings and innovative 40- bar tam-tam crescendo at the beginning, to the summons by the horns at bar 45 to draw the ‘Destroying angel’ into a dance of death. Calls to action from lead to the underground, plutonic aspects of Mars the terrorist, which finally and terrifyingly erupt, uniting the orchestra at bar 110 into a kind of Dominant statement of the opening idea. By the last few bars the unleashed destructive powers have shattered any conception of tonic and dominant- revolutionary change has taken place. We have all been changed. And the most abrasive, hard-edged piece of modern music had been written in Britain in 1914.
MARS, the bringer of war. Three musical ideas are used to create this martial piece: (1) a brutally rhythmic figure of five beats relentlessly hammered out, (2) a principal theme in triads moving by chromatic steps with no true harmonic purpose; (3) a second theme consisting of a tattoo in the tenor tuba answered by a flourish of trumpets. There is no glory, no heroism, no tragedy in this music. It is entirely inhuman. Not even death is in it, for Mars is as insensitive to death as to life. War is a senseless, mechanised horror is Holst's real subject here.
Here is a look into the score. This is a picture of the rhythmic figure that begins the piece. It rises out of nothingness and drives the piece into its full fury.
Here is the first theme. It is most easily heard in the string section although this picture shows it in the tenor tuba.
The tenor tuba sticks out the most in the second theme. Appearing very strongly out of the violin section, this theme can be heard starting at marker 2.15.