Some phenomena only music can depict. From an age before space travel, Gustav Holst’s orchestral images of the planets of the solar system are among classical music’s most extraordinary acts of imagination.

Moving from angry and ominous to fast and furious - from messages of peace to harbingers of jollity - these seven images in music made their creator famous overnight and remain among the most popular orchestral works ever written in England.

After some of the most grand and imposing orchestral music written, Holst’s The Planets ends with the unforgettable sound of a choir of women’s voices - a depiction of the mystical planet of gasses and liquids, Neptune, that could have come from another world.

Ben Glassberg conducts Holst’s masterpiece here, after Norway’s very own NoXas Saxophone Quartet joins the orchestra for the world premiere performance of Cycles - a concerto for saxophone quartet and orchestra by former Grieg Academy student, Jan Erik Mikalsen.

Related concert recordings at Bergenphilive:
Gustav Holst: The Planets