Among the most popular and important modern British composers, Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was a true eccentric, given to odd enthusiasms and mystical musings. His spectacular symphonic suite The Planets, first performed in 1918, established his international reputation and remains a staple of the orchestral repertoire to this day.
Scored for huge orchestral forces and a wordless chorus, the work is divided into seven movements, the music of each embodying the astrological and mystical qualities of a different planet. From the ominous, relentless march of Mars, the Bringer of War to the robust festivities of Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity and the weird, unearthly hush of Neptune, the Mystic, the emotional sweep and innovative techniques of the suite have delighted and thrilled its vast audience ever since its spectacular debut. Musicians and music lovers alike will want to own this authoritative, attractively published and inexpensive full score.
Stravinsky's score for the ballet Petrushka, commissioned by Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes, was first performed in Paris in 1911 and was an immediate sensation with the public and the critics. It followed by a year the great success of his score for The Firebird, also produced by the Ballets Russes, and it confirmed Stravinsky's reputation as the most gifted of the younger generation of Russian composers.
The ballet had begun in Stravinsky's mind as a picture of a puppet suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios. Soon Diaghilev had convinced the young composer to turn the work into a ballet score. Benois was chosen to be his collaborator in the libretto, Fokine and Nijinsky became involved, and the bizarre tale of three dancing puppets -- Petrushka (a folk character in Russian lore), the Ballerina, and the Moor, brought to life in a tragic tale of love -- would soon become one of the most acclaimed and performed of ballet masterpieces.
Brilliantly orchestrated, filled with Russian folksong as well as new and striking harmonies, alternately poignant and splendidly imposing, the score of Petrushka continues to be a popular subject for the study of tonal language and orchestration. This edition is an unabridged republication of the original edition published in 1912 by Edition Russe de Musique in Berlin. Printed on fine paper, sturdily bound, yet remarkably inexpensive, it offers musical scholars, musical performers, and music lovers a lifetime of pleasurable study and enjoyment of one of the most popular and acclaimed musical works of the twentieth century.