Wednesday 3 February 2010

Holst's Planets

I have a theory as to what this suite of music is actually about. Which is to say, in addition to it being about planets, in their mythic-astrological and (I'd argue) astronomical-actual senses, it is about fucking, in its various moods and modes. Mars, the Bringer of War, is a banging-away, aggressive kind of fucking; Venus (the gooddess of love, of course) about gentle, peaceful, tender lovemaking. Mercury is sprightly randy-adolescent shagging; Jollity-Jupiter is mature fucking; Saturn, 'the Bringer of Old Age', about more stately, less frequent but as deeply felt coitus. Uranus, the Magician, explores a melodramatic death-approaching final-fuck vibe. And the loveliest of all, tonally and melodiously reminiscent of Venus, is Neptune, the Mystic: a sort of suprabodily fuck of extraordinary tenderness and intensity.

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