Saturday Evening Concert

Welcome to the Weekend and your Saturday Evening Concert.  It has been kind of a strange day, but it is winding down.  As you see I am once again running behind, however it is still Saturday Evening so its all good, right?  I did manage to get out to wash & vacuum the car which took a while.  I had to wash winter and spring off the car, but it looks good now.  I have come up with what I think is a marvelous program for your evening's entertainment featuring two of the most popular orchestral suites ever written by any composer in two fabulous live performances.  

Your featured selection in these pages tonight, The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst.

From its premiere to the present day, the suite has been enduringly popular, influential, widely performed and frequently recorded. The work was not heard in a complete public performance, however, until some years after it was completed. Although there were four performances between September 1918 and October 1920, they were all either private (the first performance, in London) or incomplete (two others in London and one in Birmingham). The premiere was at the Queen's Hall on 29 September 1918, conducted by Holst's friend Adrian Boult before an invited audience of about 250 people. The first complete public performance was finally given in London by Albert Coates conducting the London Symphony Orchestra on 15 November 1920.  

Tonight's performance is a classic featuring Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in concert at the Mendelssohn Club Philadelphia in 1977.  The play list includes all 7 movements:

1. Mars, the Bringer of War
2. Venus,the Bringer of Peace
3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger
4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
6. Uranus, the Magician
7. Neptune, the Mystic

For an equally classic performance of yet another great orchestral suite, Pictures at an Exhibition, composed originally as a suite for Piano by Modest Mussorgsky.  The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition, and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists. It has become further known through various orchestrations and arrangements produced by other musicians and composers, with Maurice Ravel's arrangement being the most recorded and performed.  The original suite was inspired by an art exhibition in honor of Mussorgsky's friend, artist and architect Viktor Hartmann who died prematurely of an aneurysm at age 39. Mussorgsky completed the entire suite in 6 week in 1874.  You may join Conductor Jean-Claude Casadeus and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for their performance of Pictures at an Exhibition over on my tumblr. 

Then to cap off your evening with a little dessert, cruise down the page later to peruse the sizzling selections in this week's edition of Naked or Nearly So! posted down below.  When you head over to my tumblr for 'Pictures', be sure to check out Michael Golden, Your Hottie of the Day!  Thanks for sharing part of your Weekend with me, see you again on Monday for another week of Music, Men & More!  Until next time as always, Enjoy!