People have written books about Holst's "The Planets", so I won't waste time here writing more.  If you're interested in reading about it on-line try one of the links below as a start.  I've now transcribed two of the seven planets (Jupiter and Venus) for flute choir and a third one (Mercury) is in the works (as of 8/23/2002).  I don't think I'll do any more of them..  Most of them don't strike me as very adaptable to the medium.  Time and other arrangers working on them will tell.  I have a project list of works to do that appeal to me far more.

Web sites about "The Planets":

• http://www.aquarianage.org/lore/holst.html     Besides a write-up about each movement, it also has MIDI downloads.
• http://wso.williams.edu/~ktaylor/gholst/            A site dedicated to Holst with a fair amount dedicated to "The Planets"
• http://holst.intercosmos.com/                            This site is dedicated to the physical aspect of the planets rather than the astrological.
• http://isisweb.8m.com/holst/planets.htm            Nice fact sheet about each planet movement with sound clips

     Jupiter has an interesting history.  I'm referring to this arrangement, not the original orchestral version (although that has an interesting history, too).  The middle of the piece has an absolutely gorgeous Andante Maestoso in 3/4.  Our flute choir was hired for a wedding and the bride wanted this Andante Maestoso to be her processional.  It was an odd request considering that it was in 3/4 but the customer's always right.  I finished it and it came out so well that I decided I would do the rest of the piece.  I then had to let it sit for almost 10 years until it came into public domain so that I could share this with the rest of the flute world.

    Jupiter was arranged so that it could be performed with minimal instrumentation.  There's a great deal of duplication between flute 5, alto flute and bass flute so that if lower instruments are not readily available the piece will still have most of its flavor.  It could be played without a bass flute and maintain the proper harmonic structure, but it will obviously sound fuller, as intended, with a bass flute part.  A totally optional contrabass flute part is available through the publisher, should you be so fortunate as to have access to one.  For the most part, it does not duplicate the bass flute part.  It has been my good fortune to play with Paige MacDonald, who owns one of these instruments and to her I dedicate this particular part.  I will be striving to make optional contrabass flute parts available on all future pieces.  The Eb flute part is extremely challenging as that part was originally written for a player trading off between C flute and piccolo, so occasionally the range is quite high, but it does eliminate the need to swap instruments.

    I recommend the following instrumentation as a minimum: one piccolo 1, one piccolo 2/C flute (or Eb if you have it), one flute 3, one flute 4, 2 flute 5 (the part splits frequently and requires a low B foot), one alto flute and one bass flute.  Obviously if you have more than one alto or bass flute you will double these, but if you have more players than I've accounted for, I would then recommend doubling flutes 3 and 4 before anything else.  The piccolos should be able to take care of themselves with only one player per part.

    Mercury is in progress as of this page update.  It took a lot longer than I expected.  Several issues of real life got in the way of completing this.  Fortunately, as of 8/10/2002 I'm very close to completion and expect to have it done by the end of August.  As soon as it's done I'll add performance notes and final instrumentation (which I think will be 3 piccolos, 5 C flutes, 2 alto flutes, 1 bass flute and 1 contrabass flute).

    Venus was completed in September of 2000.  It is by far the most expansive work I've done yet.  By that I mean it has a lot of independent parts.  The piece is scored for two piccolos (both switch to flute for some of the piece), 10 C flutes, alto flute, bass flute and contrabass flute.  Following are the performance notes:

Performance notes for Venus, the Bringer of Peace

General notes: Venus was originally written for 31 instruments, 3 of them being keyboard instruments.  At no point do they all play simultaneously but I still counted 31 notes playing at one point.  Obviously a flute choir is no match for this, but I still had to write the work for 14 instruments (15 if you’re lucky enough to have access to a contrabass flute; see notes below).  For doubling, if you have the people and the instruments, I’d say double bass flute and alto flute first, then work your way up.  Under no circumstances would I double piccolos on this and I’d only double C flutes 1 & 2 if you have people with great pitch (see letter B and the end of the piece).  If you want to double these parts then I’d probably go down to one per part at the aforementioned sections.  In fact you may want to do this at certain points anyway.  Use your discretion.

While we’re on the topic of the last several measures of the piece, note the range and dynamic levels.  Much of this is muted strings in the original score.  You might want to have the flutes on the high notes play soft harmonics rather than the regular notes to try and achieve the same effect.

The most important lines move amongst the parts as they tend to do in all my arrangements.  I’ve generally indicated this with the dynamics.  I have not adhered strictly to the original score dynamics because tone colors are not going to differentiate who has the prominent  parts, therefor I’ve tended to raise the dynamics on the player(s) with those parts.  Make sure everyone knows they may have the most prominent part and to play their dynamics accordingly.

Note to conductor:  The measure numbers marked in the score are not necessarily the same measure numbers marked in the parts.  The rehearsal letters are the same in the score and the parts, so in general I recommend calling out rehearsal letters rather than measure numbers.

Contrabass Flute – While it would be extremely helpful to have one, it is not absolutely necessary.  It fills out the bottom harmonies a bit more fully than the bass flute can.  It fills in cheat notes that the bass flute can’t go down to, sparing the melody the occasional jump down rather than up.

Piccolos – Most of the time I used piccolos to simulate the glockenspiel and celesta.  Therefore, unless marked otherwise (like tied or slurred notes) the piccolos should always strive for a bell like tone, an attack and then fade.  So while other instruments may have it indicated to play legato, the piccolos may not.  They are also not the dominant voice, so you’ll need very restrained players to keep it subtle.  If you’ve got a flute player that can sustain the “ppp” high C and Bb that piccolo 2 has through the final few measures, you might want to make the substitution for consistency of tone.